Gary Dickman - September 10, 2026

0:00Billy Ho, very happy because the NFL season started and it started with his team still undefeated. The Seattle Seahawks in dramatic fashion, you might say, when the NFL opener, 13-10 over New England yesterday. And it was an exciting game. And I felt, I think if you were either listening here on ESPN, Honolulu or watching it on TV, I thought we were headed to overtime. And I wouldn't have minded that. I want more football. Even though I'm not a fan of this Wednesday night season opener, when you're having a game, might as well have more of it. Every game I see in football, almost. I'm hoping if it's a close game at the end, let's go to overtime. That's what I want to see more football. And anyway, we didn't get it as a result of one of three count of three-fourth quarter interceptions by Drake May. That is one thing about New England that I'm going to get into a little bit later, is

1:03that they obviously went to the Super Bowl last year. We know that. And last year, their schedule was considered one of the easiest in the NFL. It was a last-placed schedule. They were, it was either three and 14 or four and 13 the year before. And you're going to rotate certain divisions in your NFL schedule, but you're also going to play teams that are in the same place in the standings as you. And as a result, they had a fairly easy schedule last year compared to other teams. And they made it to the Super Bowl, to their credit. Sure. Now though, it's a lot different. Now they have a tougher schedule. And I have a couple of things here I want to get into as far as the strength of schedule and teams in the NFL because I think that does have a little bit to, it does come into play as far as how teams may or may not do throughout the course of the season. Schedule is not, it's not balanced. That's one thing.

2:03You got to play the teams in your division twice and all that. But this year's schedule is different and a lot of people, it's not just me. But there are a lot of people out there that are thinking the New England Patriots are going to have a much tougher time to make the Super Bowl this year simply because of their schedule. And it is a lot different. And I haven't seen really too many people, if anybody picked them to go to the Super Bowl in the AFC. When I've been asked about it, I don't consider New England a Super Bowl favorite this year. Drake May did have a very good season last year. There's no denying that. But it's going to be a lot different when you go over some of the teams there playing. I'm going to pull up their schedule in just a minute. With the drama around Mike Raeble, it's going to be a tough season. And also, this is breaking news. And if you are a fantasy football owner, this is something you don't want because the season basically just started for only two teams.

3:05And one of the, I don't know where he would fall on the Dept chart, but he would be a receiver that fans would want to get. One AJ Brown. And from Philadelphia, a little disgruntled, goes into England. And I guess this good news, bad news. The good news is he's not going to be out for a very long time. The bad news is he is going to be out for apparently three weeks. And I guess, you know, it could have been worse. Could have been worse. But the worst thing about fantasy football, I feel, maybe not the worst thing. Worst thing is losing. But when you have one of your star players get injured. And to me, that's one of the keys as far as how or who will win fantasy football. Whoever has the least amount of injuries, the star players, it almost comes down to that. And it's almost unavoidable. You're always going to get somebody. It might not happen early like AJ Brown, but everybody is going to go through that at some point.

4:06It's hard to go through a season of fantasy football on the scale. Anyway, back to the real NFL. When I look at the strength of schedule ranking, the toughest schedule in the NFL this year, it's Chicago Bears. And it's based on their opponents winning percentage from last year. And they've got a five, 50 winning percentage against them. I'm not going to go through them all, but I'll give it a few. Chicago, Miami and boy, that's the last thing they need. Chicago, Miami, Arizona, Green Bay, Kansas City, and then New England. New England had the sixth toughest schedule in the NFL. And they're going to have to win some of these games against some of these tough teams if they are going to repeat, at least to go to the playoffs. And I'm not going to say they're a bad team. But I think last year it was almost like the perfect storm. You just had things come together. Kansas City had injuries. And they were just even before my homes went out.

5:07They were done. They just weren't the same. And I'm not sure that's going to be the case this year, but they're not the super powerful team that you would pencil in every year to go to the Super Bowl up until maybe last year. Baltimore, I had the injuries with Lamar Jackson. You had teams going through things like that. And New England was last man standing, but they're scheduled this year. As I go through it from after last night, of course, they've got Pittsburgh next Sunday. Jacksonville. Remember Jacksonville is pretty good now. That's on the road. Buffalo on the road. The Raiders at home, the Jets at home, those are like two buys. When you got back to back games against the Raiders and the Jets and they're both in New England, yeah, those are two buy. But then they go to Chicago to Miami. You got Green Bay. You got Detroit, but those games are both at home. You got to play the chargers on the road.

6:09Buffalo again, Minnesota, Kansas City on the road. The Jets again, Denver and Miami. Out of their division, you have the AFC West. And besides the Raiders, all three of those games are going to be really tough. And then you also got Green Bay, you also got the NFC North. And when you got Green Bay Detroit, Minnesota there and the Bear, that's not going to be easy. I'm not going to guess what their record will be. But I think it's going to be tough for them. It is going to be tough. And that was a game last night where when Sam Darnel went out with a hip injury, you would think they could take advantage of that because Seattle had a hard time putting up points. That last, the fourth quarter touched down. The 45 y'all were fantastic. But besides that, they didn't have much offense. The problem was Drake made it really do much either. And especially in the fourth quarter, that reminded me of like a Ryan Fitzpatrick game when he was on the jets because it seemed like he often would throw interceptions

7:14in the fourth quarter. There was one game for the jets. Fourth quarter might have been the last game of the year. They needed to win to go to the playoffs. And he threw two fourth quarter interceptions. But enough about the jets. Drew Locke comes in for Sam Darnel last night and didn't look that great early, but he made some nice throws. And in the fourth quarter, he did make some key throw to touchdowns in the fourth quarter. And Jackson Smith and Jigbaugh, boy, the guy is fast. We knew that. That 45 y'all touched down was amazing because it was mostly yak. And he just split the defenders and just got it open and seemed. And it was just all the taking, all for the taking of his 45 y'all touched down that basically won the game. And then Drake may make the last interception in the end zone where I think it was 26 seconds left when he threw it. Oh, when it was intercepted, they were in field goal range. And I'm not blaming the call. I mean, you go for the win if you can on the road.

8:16Or you just go for the win. You still have a couple of shots at the end zone. And this guy, some people think was going to be an MVP. That's where I kind of, and I know it's only one game. I know that. But that's where I kind of get almost amused because you get these free season rankings and predictions. And a lot of it, if not the majority of it is based on last year. Well, Drake may help New England go to the Super Bowl. So he's got to be one of the top cornerbacks. Nothing against him. I think he did have a really good year. And he again, surprised a lot of people. The schedule again, the team that they played is a little bit to, has a little bit to do with that on why he had that success. And I know it's just this one game. I'm not going to say we'll see. Now he's showing how bad he is. It's not quite there, but that was a really poor performance when you think about that in the fourth quarter yesterday. And they had the opportunities. They had the opportunity to go and take that game. And they just couldn't get it done.

9:19And so we'll see more about Sam Donnell as far as if he'll be out more than a week or two, if at all. They showed they didn't have a headline. I thought this was interesting. I'm trying to find a headline. It said something. There's great news for Seattle regarding Sam Donnell. Look, great news about Sam Donnell. Now if he was on the jets and I saw that headline, the great news would be that he'd be out for a while because he's stunk with the jets. But when you see that in New England, the great news is the X-ray did not show any fractures. He's going to get an MRI today and see if there's anything further as far as the extent of his injury. Which of course is good news. I never want to see a guy. I don't even know if I joke about that. I don't want to see anybody lose a game due to injury. Even if it's against my team, even if it's a great player, I definitely draw the line at that. By the way, getting back to New England for a second. Last year's schedule, this is who they beat. They beat Miami. They beat Carolina early when Carolina who had a good finish wasn't that great.

10:24They beat Buffalo. They beat New Orleans. They beat Tennessee. They beat Cleveland. They beat Atlanta. Think about that winning streak there. Actually, that was one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. That was a 10 game winning streak. And they won 13 of their last 14. That's incredible. But look at those teams I just mentioned as part of that stretch. New Orleans, Tennessee, Cleveland, Atlanta, bad, bad football teams last year. Then they beat Tampa Bay. They did beat the jets. They beat Cincinnati who was pretty bad without Joe Burrell. They beat the New York Giants who were bad. They beat Baltimore without Lamar Jackson, not a playoff team. Beat the jets again in Miami. You had four games against the jets in Miami, four wins automatically. And then as I mentioned, some of those other games there, fantastic record, was deceiving. And their schedule this year is a lot tougher.

11:24So you got to give them some credit. In the playoffs last year, they beat the chargers. They beat Houston and they beat Denver. So you got to give them some credit. Their defense is a big part of it. In those three playoff games, they let up three points, 16 points and seven. 26 points and three game. Then of course, they lost the Seattle in the Super Bowl. So I'm glad the NFL was back. That was great. And we do have another game today that will be the game in Australia, the Niners and the Rams. Aaron Donald is not in Australia. I thought I heard after the announcement of his signing that he was going to start game one. Whether that was set or not is irrelevant now because he didn't make the trip. And I think it's kind of smart when you hear what Sean McVey had to say. They feel that they're not going to try to rush him back. And with that long flight and the time change, which the time change, I don't think would

12:27be a big factor, but he did mention it. The quick turnaround is they're leaving right after the game. They just thought it wouldn't be as conducive to him being 100% healthy by going to this game. And again, I think it's smart. There was some talk a month ago that Aaron Donald might sign midway through the season. There's no reason to have him in September, October. Let him get in the shape at a slow rate and save his health for the second half and the playoffs. That does make some sense. Well, either way, whether it did or didn't then, he obviously signed. But I think it's a smart move and I look at that. Now that game will be on our sister station, the new AIM 1420 Hawaii News and Super Bowl. Sports kick off and I'm going to get the exact time of our coverage here in a second. Kick off is at two and I'm going to get the exact time and kick off to make sure I have it right because I know yesterday's game was at 220 and I will get that in a second. By the way, as I am scrolling, the phone number, the text number, you probably know it, but

13:32just in case 808296 1500 is that number. And as I look at our schedule for today, our coverage will start at one. 30 p.m. on AM 1420. And if you are interested before the game, before the pregame coverage, we will have bet GM tonight. And I'm not sure if everybody is aware. We have the gym room show on AM 1420. That is a great show. I love Jim Rowe. That is on at 9 a.m. We got Rich Eisen here on ESPN on a Lulu at 9 a.m. Get the best of both worlds and you get to choose. By the way, we confirmed the start of that game. It is at 2.35. And again, that game is going to be a little different. It being in Australia. And I know the Rams are seemingly everybody's favorite to go to the Super Bowl. And what I'm asked about that every year for Super Bowl predictions, what I normally do is pick the final form.

14:35And I haven't made it concrete yet, but I can, so to speak, as I did give it to some friend of mine the other day. And in the AFC, my first team would be Buffalo. The only way I would be a little hesitant on them, well, one reason is that they've struggled on the playoffs. I actually have two reasons. The struggles in the playoffs, I don't think would necessarily be a carryover effect every year. But they have a new head coach. And there are a lot of new head coaches in the NFL. Joe Brady is the guy. The famous quarterback coach with Joe Burrow and Ella is here. And he was with Buffalo last year. Now he's elevated to being the head coach. I mean, offensively, you would think they should continue to put a big number. I'm not a believer in Kansas City. The first time I haven't picked Kansas City in the AFC championship game since I have heard the name Patrick Maholmes on the Kansas City Chiefs. The opponent for Buffalo, I think is tough. I'm almost going to do it by elimination.

15:35I don't think it's Kansas City. I'm not a big believer in Denver yet, even though they went all the way last year to that final four in the championship game. Botanix did have a really good year. They'll have a tougher schedule this year. We'll see how that works out. Well, I'm certainly not picking Cleveland or the Jets. And I'm not picking New England to go to the AFC championship game. So I'm eliminating a lot of team. I am a little questionable. I'm a little questionable or curious about Baltimore. They've got a new head coach. And Lamar Jackson had the fewest rushing yards in a few different categories last year. I'm not sure if he had even one run over 20 yards last year. If he did, it was like one or two. So he usually is a very effective runner. Of course, he was hurt. You just wonder when is that going to start taking more of an effect on him. And with the new coaching staff, more so I'm a little reluctant to pick Baltimore. I don't think there's anybody in the AFC North or South, I should say, because you've

16:42got Jacksonville who I think could win that division. Slash, Houston. And I think it's between those two. I would love to see Indianapolis go back just for the farest buckner, good friend to the show. So it's almost like who is going to play Buffalo in the AFC championship game. I really have a hard time picking the one team that I think is going to be that good. I don't think it'll be Pittsburgh. It's interesting also on this. And I'm going to hopefully I'll remember to give Ken O'Neill and Billy a hard time about this later because I enjoy that. I heard them making their picks yesterday. They're super bowl picks. And this wasn't a super bowl team, but they had the Cincinnati bangle winning the AFC North, which is not an awful pick. It's not going to be Cleveland. It's not going to be, well, a lot of people don't think it'll be Pittsburgh. But why pick Cincinnati? I guess Joe Burrow and maybe thereby a process of elimination.

17:43What I find interesting about that, or why I'm going to give them a hard time, is last year I picked Cincinnati to win the AFC. And boy did I catch a lot of slack from those two guys. How did you pick Cincinnati? And my kind of condition was, well, if they're healthy, I think they are maybe the best team in the AFC. I mean, you've got a great quarterback, receiver tandem. You've got a lot of power offensively. And they did have good players on defense. I thought, and I had to think outside the box because it would be easy to say it's Kansas City or Buffalo, the recent power. But I tried to think of somebody different who would definitely have a chance. Either way, those guys picked Cincinnati yesterday. And so I'm going to remind them of how they were giving me a hard time. And they did it throughout the season. When Cincinnati was struggling and I had to remind them, well, you don't have Joe Burrow. Do you take any starting quarterback off of any NFL team for the most part?

18:43And they're going to lose a few more games as a result of that. On a good team, I mean, if the Seattle Sea Hawk did not have Sam Darnel, let's say for the next three game. Drew Lock, yeah, give him credit. Nice fourth quarter yesterday. They're not going to be as successful as if they had Sam Darnel. That is just one example on that. So want to bring that up. Just again, glad the NFL is back. Reminder the coverage today on AM 1420. I will have volleyball tickets to give out a little bit later in the show. This is for tomorrow night's match against Central Arkansas. That's the opponent for tonight. It's a two match series. And we will have tip well, not only on the call as we do home and away all season long. He'll be on the call at 645 tonight on ESPN Honolulu. He'll also be on ESPN Honolulu on this very show. And about an hour and 15 minutes, 635 will have tip on. And just as a coincidence, we'll have some volleyball tickets to give out as I mentioned.

19:47So we got a lot in store today. A couple of impressive stats also. Got a lot more football, got text to get into UH football, of course, all that coming up ahead. It is 25 minutes after the hour of 5am. Gary Dickman and Chris Shimabukuro here on ESPN Honolulu in our downtown studio. Well, I said earlier in the show that there's one happy camper here in our studio. Or we'll be in our studio in a little bit. That's Billy Hall. Now I got a gripe to pick with him. I knew that the thing is that I bet Kenoa would agree with this. And I think he did say this on the air yesterday. I was almost pulling for New England yesterday. In a way, I'd like Seattle to win because I like Billy. I do like Billy. I get my hard time sometimes. Of course, just for fun. But I realize that if Seattle won, as he was giving us his thoughts, he has today saying how disrespected they are. I know we won't hear the end of it. It's going to have a wide smile on his face. And he's going to make it sound like they're already clenching a Super Bowl

20:49birth by virtual last night's win. And if they lost, I would have felt bad for him. But it wouldn't be so outrageous with his thoughts. And here's one that he tweeted last night. And I do take exception with this. He texts, he tweets, Drake May is the fourth best quarterback in the NFL. And he just lost to the Seattle Seahawks backup quarterback. After completely stinking it up in the Super Bowl. Fourth best quarterback, are you kidding me? Drake May is not even close to the fourth best quarterback in the NFL. He's good. He had a good year. If you're going to rank the quarterbacks or the top of my head, I will go with Matthew Stafford, Patrick Mahol, Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, Joe Burrow. That's just only have five fingers on that one hand. I could go on and on with several more before I got to Drake.

21:49May Jalen Hertz is a better quarterback than Drake May. Drake may have a good year last year. He had a really good year. Look at the competition, A. And if you're going to annoy him as like the fourth best in the NFL, base it on more than just one season. And if somebody like Billy, I might come back with this. Well, those guys were hurt now. They're not the same. Matthew Stafford was the MVP last year. Patrick Mahol was hurt. Lamar Jackson was hurt. Joe Burrow was hurt. They're still better. You got to, if you got a rank guide, you got to rank them as far as how they are right now. And how they been when healthy. And all those guys that I mentioned that were out last year are right now healthy and ready to go. I could go on for a few more that are better than Drake May. Again, really good year last year. Wasn't good the year before that. And maybe he's got a new coaching staff. He and Josh McDaniel have clicked. But see, that's the thing.

22:50He's going to be too, almost cocky, too arrogant, where this comm is making it sound like Seattle just beat the fourth best quarterback in the NFL. I do take exception with that. Anyway, to put me in a better mood, let's go to the text line here at 808-296-1500. And speaking of Seattle, this is from Seattle Mike. Good morning, Gary. See Hawks. What a game. Gotta give Josh Joby a huge shout out for that game winning interception. Low hop from Mike. Yeah, that was a great ending. If you're a Seattle fan and know there's a Mike and Billy and a whole bunch of others, that was great. And it was a bad throw by Drake May. You would think in that situation, if he's the fourth best quarterback, Billy, why did he throw three-fourth quarter interception? They don't say it's a Seattle defense. I'm having a discussion with him. He's not even here. I think that that particular play, he should have just thrown it away. When you're in a position where you can tie the game or win the game,

23:53you don't want to force it too much. And I don't know what he saw. I didn't hear his exclamation, except that he said it was all on him. And he was. Well, I shouldn't say it's all on him, but in the fourth quarter, he did not perform. And so a lot of it was on him. But in that situation, the last thing you want to do is throw an exception. Not that there's other situations where it's okay. It's just that you have a chance, you control whether you can win or tie. And a tie is not the worst thing at that point. And you're in a position to get that tie. Not much time left, so whenever you were going to kick that field goal, and I don't know how many more timeouts let they had if they had, it could have been more than one or two. If that. But you know that Seattle's not going to have enough time to score getting the ball back after a field goal. That's not the worst thing. Yeah, if you can win great, if you can get it touched down great, you're not going to just settle for the field goal, but you're not going to force it.

24:53And you could almost tell when he threw that ball, soon as the cameras showed both players in the end zone that it wasn't going to have a happy ending for New England. And of course, it did. But thank you for that text, Mike, and congratulations. I like this text. Apparently there were two football games on last night. Met's feeding the Marlins. Met's are hot, by the way. They're not even in last place. Everybody, 15 to 14. The Met's almost blowing leads of eight, nothing, and 14, six. Yeah, that's true. They wore up eight, nothing, and like the third inning, Miami came back. They swept Miami on the road. Miami was ready to get a wild card spot. And the Met's are preventing that now. Last year, I was reminded in one of my, one of the Met's columns that I read in the New York post. Last game of the season, if they win, they're in the playoffs, and they lost to Miami. So a little bit of payback. Few years earlier, they needed to beat Miami

25:53to remain in the playoff pond. And both the years, I think it was like 23 and 25. Well, it couldn't have been 25, that was last year. But 23 and another year around there, they got swept by Miami. So they've caused them about time to get payback. But that was a game where, yeah, I couldn't believe the final. I saw it was like 14 to six. And I thought the game was over. And I saw the final, I was a little bit scared, but it was a final, so I couldn't be too scared. But the Met's are hot. They're not going to play off. They're not eliminated yet. But and they're not going to go. But yeah, they're playing a lot better. Little bit of one of those situations where you would say too little too late, because that's exactly what it is. Okay, I'll get some more text in here. Hey, Gary, it's N-D-L. There's no regular, there's no replay, regular. There's no replay on yesterday's shows. It was not anything we could control. It was a computer issue. And we couldn't have done anything about it. It is up and working today. And the shows should be ready to be uploaded

26:56after a show is completed. So apologize for that. But they are up and running. And it was something that we unfortunately could not control. Pauli text in real early today at 148. He says, good morning, Gary. Pauli, here. Were you able to watch the season opener for NFL yesterday? Although it may through the ball to the player in the wrong color jersey, do you think New England with the momentum should have tied the game and going to the overtime or just proceed with scoring a touchdown to win and end the game? Although low scoring, I think the Super Bowl rematch was much better than the original LOL. Happy Thursday morning. Well, the way you phrase that question, it's an easy answer. I mean, should they have tied the game or just proceed with scoring a touchdown? If you could proceed with just scoring a touchdown, you do it. But when you are proceeding, the team is defending. That is then the other color jersey, as you stated. And it wasn't automatic. As I just said, they could have gone for the touchdown.

27:59Oh, they weren't going for the touchdown. They didn't want to settle for overtime and a field goal. And there's no guarantee a field goal goes in. But you don't force it. That was the problem as I just explained that I had. You can't go in a situation like that and force a throw. You should have just thrown it away. And he's young. He will learn. But yeah, that was a tough one. One more before the break. I do have a text that came in last night that I'm going to bring up when we return after this next break. But let me get to this one. It says, OMG, the difference between week zero and week one should reveal a team's progress. For Hawaii revealed its weakness and insignificance. Which other teams opponents will pick up on. The UNLV laws will serve as a template going forward versus Hawaii's deficient offensive line. Hawaii just barely scored six points at home. Parted my line. I hopeless in Hawaii. Not a mic. Well, I agree with you on the offensive line. That has been tough. I don't know about the insignificance,

29:01but it did reveal a weakness. And right now it is the offensive line, but it's not only them. I don't think it's fair. I don't think it's accurate to say they are the problem, the sole problem. They are a big part of it. But the wide receivers have not made it any easier. And we don't know who it's more on us. I mentioned with John Vanieri the other day. Is it the wide receiver running the wrong routes? Is it Micah maybe throwing to the wrong spot? Is it the half the rush to throw it because of the pressure? And that's why he's throwing it where the receivers aren't. I'm not sure. But the wide receiver as far as the routes haven't been on the same page A. And B, there have been a few drops. I'm not one of those guys who's gonna say too many drops after every loss. There are some that will say that often. I think it's inevitable that you're gonna have drop. You're gonna have turnovers in basketball. It's not like you're gonna go through a game with three turnovers.

30:02If you get less than 10 or 11 is kind of the mark in college, that's not too bad. You're gonna get them. Now you're not gonna think the same way about turnovers in football because they don't happen as frequently and they shouldn't happen as frequently. But you are gonna have drop passes. It's not gonna be too often that you're gonna get a whole team where there's not a drop in a game. So if you have two or three, I mean, it's not that I'm okay with it. It's just that I think it's kind of expected that they come in an opportune time. That's not good. But I think there was a few areas to pass to blame. And also I would say this, Micah, even though I'm blaming more of the offensive line and the receivers, he didn't seem to play his best game. And I'm still gonna hold out more judgment until there's a few more games played. UNLV is good. It was a tough game. Even with them being good and you knew they were good, Hawaii played a lot worse offensively than I thought they would. To only get those two field goals,

31:03even though they really scored another touchdown. They scored a touchdown just like Western Michigan won that game. I kind of believe both are accurate, but that's not the way it works, unfortunately. 24 minutes before the hour of six. When I come back, a special text came in about a special person. And I'll tell you about that coming up in a minute. 20 minutes before the top of the hour, we'll get you caught up with traffic. And hopefully everything will be going smooth sailing. I do wanna get to that text. Now there's two texts about the same topic, but before that, you know after the Michigan, Western Michigan controversy, that there was gonna be people having fun with it. I mentioned one AI video that I saw and I put it on my Twitter page the other day. I just reached weed of it if you wanna look at it up at Gary Turp. This video, if you haven't seen it or heard of it, is the referee after the first Hell Mary was unsuccessful and he's signaling game over. And then he turns to his right

32:05as somebody is approaching him. And it's a man, a staffer, you would think, with a Michigan hat, a Michigan sweatshirt, and a Michigan bag, and it was full of cash all wrapped up. And the guy lives his head is Jim Harbock former Michigan coach. The referee grabs a few of these big packs of cash, stuffs it in his back pocket, and then signals touchdown. And that was funny. Well, I just saw one during the break and I saw one yesterday. So I'm gonna get to them kind of quickly here. This one is on Twitter and it's from a Twitter handle of some BYU dude. And I don't even know if I follow him, but I saw this tweet and it says this, don't forget to set your clock back one second this Saturday for Michigan savings time in reference to daylight saving time, having a little fun with that. The other one that I just saw, I believe this for about a minute or a few seconds at least, breaking news. And there's the football field,

33:05helmets of Michigan and Oklahoma on a football field and the stadium in the background, big lettering, breaking news. And the wording is this, kickoff has been changed from 11 a.m. central to 11 o'clock and one second a.m. to accommodate the game clock and Ann Arbor. I love that. That is funny. They're never going to escape this. They're never going to live it down. Okay, here are the texts that I got last night. And I was very sad in when I saw this yesterday. The text from Brandon said, I have to hear your thoughts on the passing of Barry Melrose. Barry Melrose was with ESPN for 20s plus years. I think it was 27 years, if I have it right. He was an NHL player. He was an NHL coach. He was the J. Billis of hockey, let's say.

34:06As an analyst, he knew it all. And years ago when I was doing the sports animal show with Chris Harp, Neil Levery, and I'm sure everybody remembers Neil, at ESPN a few times over the years hooked me up with some big names and they became semi-regular guests. They wore Scott Van Pelt, it was a big Maryland fan, so we got a long great. J. Billis, so I got to get on soon to talk more about NILs and what's going on. And Barry Melrose. And to get Barry Melrose on, the first time he had him on the show, I was thrilled. That's a big name in hockey. You guys know that I love hockey. It's the best sport to see in person. I love college basketball the most, but a hockey in person, anyway, enough on that, he is the man, he is the expert. And he and Neil Everett became very close. In fact, when Barry would go to LA, because I think he was based out of Connecticut in Bristol with ESPN. And every now and then he would go to LA, he would stay at Neil's house

35:08and spend the few nights there. They were really close. I did reach out to Neil yesterday and he just responded with, he's the best. Anyway, he passed away up today at the age of 70, complications I believe from Parkinson. He had a retire from ESPN within a year or so. And he was diagnosed almost three years ago. My brother had Parkinson's and a Lewy body dementia. And there's a lot of ugly diseases and illnesses out there, a lot of them, way too many. To kind of experience Parkinson's firsthand, to be around my brother, it's pretty ugly. And not to take anything away from any other illness or disease, but I can imagine how much he was struggling. And he did pass away yesterday and the tributes. And if you watch Sports Center last night, you know what I'm talking about? The tributes on Sports Center from all around the country, if not the world, from Wayne Gretzky to many, many other,

36:11really, really moving. Some of the ESPN personalities, Steve Levy, who was a big hockey guy for ESPN. He wrote some really nice things about Barry Melrose. He was great on the show. And sometimes I'm asked, you know, who was the biggest guest I've ever had the biggest name? I'm not gonna say he was the biggest, but I got such a reaction over the years whenever Barry was on with us. And we would have him on a couple of times a year, beginning of the season, maybe the middle, and of course during the playoffs at least once. And I kind of feel bad that for whatever reason, maybe it was the time of the show, but we should have him on in the afternoon mainly, between three and six. But he was a great guest, and I just felt like, you know, when I got to talk to him, this was special. And you know, that does happen. Every now and then when we get a big name, and I mean when I get, let's say Jay Bill is on. That's a cool guest to get here. And we've had him on fairly often, but it does feel good when some of the really big names,

37:12first of all, are gracious enough to come on, make the interview interesting, and they'll keep coming back. And as a hockey fan, it doesn't get any bigger than Barry Melrose. And so I was really, really sad when I saw the news yesterday. It was really nice where Scott Van Pelt gave a nice tribute, and so many, he did it on his sports center show. And so many others at ESPN, Linda Cohen, who just reached higher, about a couple of months ago, she is a big hockey fan. She played high school hockey, I think she was a goalie. Might have even played college hockey as a goalie, but she had some really nice things. And others saying how Barry was the nicest guy there, and even on Twitter, I was reading, and these are from people I follow, and people I don't follow, but names in the media, from not just ESPN, from all around, and there was a lot to say about Barry Melrose

38:13throughout the evening yesterday. So yeah, it was sad. I'm glad Brandon texted that question. Of course I was going to talk about it anyway, but yeah, that was a tough one. The other tags that we got on Barry Melrose just a few minutes ago, says I always enjoyed Barry Melrose, hockey's insight. Did he ever win a Stanley Cup as a player or a coach? No, I'm 99% sure he didn't win one as a player. As a coach in 1993, he coached Wayne Gretzky in the LA King, and he brought him to the Stanley Cup final, and they lost to Montreal, to Montreal, Canadian. Just a little sidebar, that Stanley Cup was the last time a Canadian team is won a Stanley Cup, if I remember correctly, 1993. And coaching Wayne Gretzky, I mean, he was really successful there. And as soon as he, it's weird because he left the King, I don't think he got fired,

39:13but within a few months, he joined ESPN, in like 96, I believe, and been with him ever since, except in 2008, they gave him a break, because he ended up coaching the Tampa Bay Lightning. That lasted, I believe, 16 games, and then he got fired. The story that I remember about that was his philosophy, wasn't jelling with the players and other people in the organization. That was a quick one to fire though. But anyway, Barry Melrose, great dresser, he had the mullet. He was a great personality. I love this laugh. And yeah, that's sad. I mean, this happens so often, it seems like, and maybe as you get older, there are more people that you've seen or know that have been around a long time, and you get these stories where it just really hitches in the gut. And they hear that about Barry Melrose yesterday. Yeah, that was one of those situations. It was tough. I almost felt like I did feel like I lost a friend.

40:16And I had to think about it. Not like we hung out. There were times when I did text him to come on the show, and I would have maybe a little bit of a brief text exchange about a topic real briefly. But that was it. But I still felt yesterday like I lost a friend. And maybe because having him on the show as often as we did, maybe feel like that. But yeah, definitely a sad day in the NHL. We'll take a break and come back with a lot more, and get some more text coming up here. Now remember that Michigan Oklahoma game that you just heard about during the break, that'll start one second later. That just goes back to the little meme on Twitter. I saw that was pretty funny. Gary Dickman here, 80829615100. Is the phone number? Is the text number? Love to hear from you. Whether it's about the NFL. Of course, again, we've got the other game today, the Rams and the 49ers. And that broadcast will start at 130 PM on the new AM 1420.

41:17Who I news in sport. You know, I was talking about Billy's tweet that he had Drake May of the fourth best quarterback in the NFL. I did a little quick jotting down during the break. Here's who I got that I think are better. And if you're gonna say, well, those guys were hurt, well, you can't do it that way. If you're gonna rank somebody. And anyway, here I go. And no specific order. Josh Allen, Joe Burrell, Lamar Jackson. And when I say this, Liz, if you're gonna judge what I'm saying, which is fine, think about if you had a Super Bowl to win. Everybody's healthy. Who would you rather have Drake May today or who are mentioning right now? Josh Allen, Joe Burrell, Lamar Jackson, Patrick Mahol. Matthew Stafford, Jared Goff, Trevor Lawrence, Aaron Rogers, Dak Prescott, Jalen Hertz. And as an alternate, as a possible,

42:17Caleb Williams and Baker Mayfield. Now I can say Drake May is better than they've had a better year than them last year. But the other guys I mentioned, if I have one game to win, I'm going with any of those. And you can say, well, Aaron Rogers has done yet a pretty good year last year. You know, the Steelers weren't great, but they were good considering everything they had to deal with. And yeah, he's not the MVP Aaron Rogers. They still feel that he is better than Drake May. So we're going to hear about that when I talk of Billy later. I've got volleyball tickets to give out next hour. Tiff Wells will be on when I'm giving him away, though, and also impressive stats. We'll be back in just a minute with the Gary Dickman Show ESPN on a little. Back we are. It's the Gary Dickman Show hour number two on this Thursday morning on ESPN on a little 92.7 FM and AM 1500. I don't know if anybody else noticed this, but like last night, and maybe because of the storm, probably was, but it seemed really warm and kind of humid out.

43:19Even this morning when I left my townhouse to get in my car, I just felt really warm, but normally not the case at this time of the morning or even at night, but anyway, little thought there. I did not get into this last hour, but there is some good news for the University of Hawaii football team. Micah Ali Hato was a full participant in practice yesterday. So if anybody like one of our favorite textures was wondering that he's heard already or claiming that, even though that was never said, but I'm gonna stand some people wondering if that's why he was held out of practice on Tuesday. He was at it yesterday. And agree or not agree. I don't think that's a big deal. It's more of like no deal. No big deal. They used to do on PTI, but probably still do it. So he is back. And that is a good thing. For all of his struggles and their worst struggles, you still want him as number one. I think it's great to know that just like last year, we had a really more than adequate backup with Luke Weaver. And from the early indications,

44:21even so it's been only limited playing time, but John Jürgen sent seemed like he can be back up that if needed. And he did his job last week. I don't think you could say he did anything wrong on the touchdown that was overturned. We know we got a guy with an arm who, we can be more reliant on than sometimes with a backup, but you want Micah in there. What UH is also doing, and I mentioned this last week, and I get this will be the case all season, in their media notes that we get sent out every Monday. And it's usually about 25, 30 pages of tons of information. They used to always have the depth chart. And what they did, the first week, zero, they didn't have anything. Second week last Saturday against UNLV, they had last week starters. And that was from the Stanford game in last week's notes. For the ones this week, no depth chart. It says depth chart, but then in parentheses, it says last week starters versus UNLV.

45:23That's game and ship. That's a coach who, and I would probably do the same thing. Why give any extra insight to who might, or might not be starting to your opponent, then you have to give. Now the injury report is different. You could get in trouble if it's not accurate. If you lie, I'm not sure if you get in trouble, if you exaggerate. In other words, if you say somebody doubtful, and he's actually questionable, or if he is questionable, and you list them, if he's gonna play and you list him as questionable, I don't know if you can get in trouble, but probably would be hard to prove. But once again, it's last week starters on the media note. And one of the reasons for that, I believe, is with no Pfele Ashlock, you wanna make sure that your opponent, no matter who it is, and with New Mexico State, don't give them any insight, inkling, on who may or may not be playing. Keep them guessing. It's not a big detail, but all these minor details add up.

46:27And if you can do any or every little thing, that would help your team. That's within good sportsmanship. I mean, I've heard stories over the years, not really in college, but in the NFL, where actually in college it's happening. What school is it? Some reason I'm thinking Big Ten, was it Iowa? Where they would paint the visitor's locker rooms pink. For whatever the reasons were, that would be more intimidating, or it was just something they believed in. And they did it purposely. There were a lot of allegations against Boston's cell tickets back in the day, and they're older, re-in-the-boston garden, where they would turn off the heat in the visitor's locker room, which was already cramped purposely. They would turn off the hot water for taking showers after the game, stuff like that. And that's going a little bit too far. But to not release a depth chart, yeah, I guess why not? So are we gonna get the same starters? And when you look at second game against Vegas, compared to Stanford, we did have different starters,

47:29at least at the Whiteout. Carson Brown did not start against Stanford. Audric Harris, I don't believe, started against Stanford. And Trey Griffitz didn't start against Stanford. And maybe, again, him, he's gonna do it again as far as mixing some of these guys up. I don't know. I mean, if I'm basing it off of last week, I mean, to be honest, I think Trey Griffitz had two drop passes and one specifically. It might have been the play where he heard his ankle. And I don't even know if he's gonna be playing this week. He was, I believe somebody had written that he was maybe doubtful. It even though that wasn't official, we'll find out more. Today, in fact, I'm gonna give Chris a homework assignment, although I think it's later in the day, but can you check the injury report for Hawaii against the Mexico State? I'm not sure if it's this early. You have to pull one out by Thursday, and then you have to update it and put another one out on game day. I forget how many hours before it kick off on Saturday. But it does give us a little insight if there is any official word,

48:31where last two weeks, Pfele Ashlock was listed as questionable. And of course, didn't play, didn't even suit up. One of these weeks is gonna be listed as questionable and play. I don't think we'll know until Saturday. If it's gonna happen this week, and I'll have to hope for that. Now, remember, after this game, they go to Wyoming, and it'll be a nine AM start Hawaii time. At least it won't be as cold. The altitude will still be a concern, but it won't be as bad as it normally could be in Laramie. And then after that game, let me find the schedule here, it'll be San Jose State as their next opponent. And that will be though, after we go back up a second, after New Mexico State, then we got the bite. And then we go to Wyoming. So Wyoming will be on September 26th. We have two bites. One of them is Halloween. Halloween is on its Saturday this year. That would have been kind of fun to have a football game on Halloween.

49:32To happen before, either way, that's gonna be a bite and coming up after the Saturday's game, they have a bite. Does that mean, and I don't really like to speculate too much, but does that mean that, okay, you keep a Feli out from the Mexico State, should be able to beat him without him? Then you gotta buy, and that gives him another two weeks to get ready for another big conference game, that being Wyoming. And I think that was one way of looking at it. Not that New Mexico State is not important, it is, but it's not as important. And they are not as good of a team. That's just the reality. At least, as good of a team as UNLV, or some of the others we got coming up. So I don't know if that's how they're thinking. We'll find out when they want us to find out, I guess there's one way of putting it. I wanna go back and see what the new updated point spread is, and it's still at seven and a half. Started off at nine and a half, went down to seven and a half and six and a half,

50:33and now back at seven and a half. I saw this, and I wanna make sure I get this in, because I think this is outrageous. This is, it could be an impressive stat. So maybe it's an early addition of an impressive stat or two or more. There is a site on Twitter, and I knew I just lost it, but I am going to find it real fast, I hope, and try to save it here, but I will get this back. What it does have is the courses that you can take at SEC schools, and they are incredible. I thought this was a joke, and it is not. And I'm hoping I can find it here, because I know I just followed this site. One of the courses, I can do a few by memory. Can we just try to get this here? I know I'm just popped up and trying to get the sky here, but let me see if I can pull that up. One of the courses, which is crazy to believe it's true, but every now and then you'll hear about strange courses at university.

51:34And one of them was involving Taylor Swift music. One of them is about exotic coffee in Germany, I believe. And these are actual classes, they had schools like Tennessee, Florida, Georgia, and at times, this is what college players will take in different sports. I don't want to get too far into that, but that's happened over the years. I did mention though a few weeks ago, Lenora's sellers at the quarterback at South Carolina, and he is not taking any classes this year, the semester. I don't know how you do that. What he's doing, he's doing some kind of, I think it's an internship, which will give him a couple of credits, and it's something ridiculous, but that happened. And I guess it's legal. And maybe he puts his gun to school some of the years, he doesn't necessarily need to, but I thought that was crazy. And anyway, I'm trying to find that site, and it escaped me, I tried to keep it on my Instagram page,

52:35but I won't find it before too long, trust me on that, but they were crazy. There was another one with Kanye West or Yee and his music. There was all kinds of crazy courses, like four or five at every university. I'm not sure if you wish has anything like that, because some of them almost sound like they're fake, and why would they even have a course like that? But there are some very unusual ones there. And unfortunately for me right now and everybody, I've got so many followers, followers that I am following, I should say, that the first one I just followed during the break is not showing up at the top of the screen. When you think about it, it should, should be the most recent, but it's not there. I apologize for that, but I will get it before it not too long. It was kind of weird to see some of those classes there. Let me get back to the text line here at 808, 296, 1500, and slowly opening up here. This is great for my iPad to be acting up when it shouldn't be at this time, but I'll get the text in here involving football,

53:36and I remind you today's Let's Talk Sports Show, you will have an opportunity, also at Biseko and Harden Facts, to win football tickets for the New Mexico State Game. I will have volleyball tickets to give out for tomorrow night. We've got two matches this week against Central Arkansas. Okay, let me get to some text. Hey Gary, NDL again, just heard your comment. Maybe you guys need to ask for some NIL money to fix the phone lines and computers, or go fund me. I'll put you in charge of that because yeah, we weren't able to upload yesterday's shows, and I'll be apologized for that. It was a computer problem, but thank you for that text. Another text, if I recall correctly, UHB Portland State last year, in a game they were supposed to win handily, but it was closer than expected. So we can't take any team lightly, but a win is a win, even though it was an ugly win. This is from Jay. Yeah, I mean, at this point, I know from experience from doing the fans' voice, if Hawaii beats in Mexico state,

54:38let's say it's 13 to 12, there are gonna be more people complaining than happy. I know that. At least the voice of that will let themselves be heard, whether it's a text or a phone call. People sometimes aren't satisfied. And I understand that, the Mexico state of the team were favored by a touchdown bite. It's a hard team to figure out in a way based on this year, in that they are one in one, losing the Florida state by 17. Florida state, not that good. Some people think that's a bad, that's a good loss for them. They beat an FCS school in Mercyhurst, last week, 51-14. Hard to read into that one. It's an FCS school. A team that is not ranked. So it's hard to read into that. But if Hawaii win by a point, and it's a low scoring game, I know when to get more complaints than anything else. Now if they win by a blowout, everybody will be kind of happy. I'll be happy with a win. I'd be happier with a blowout. I'd be happy with a complete performance.

55:39I'd be happy if a lot of things that they've had struggles with turn around. And whether it's catching more passes than not having that many drops, giving Mike a more time, I think is probably number one on my list. Things like that, I think, would be more important, well, as important as to win. So a win would be great, but it's how you win. How often defense can do a better job against Iran? I think they did better overall last week. As far as they're tackling, rushing numbers were pretty poor. 248 I believe for a UNLV. A passing number is only 118. So there were aspects they were a little bit better, but I want to see more of a complete game. I am getting a text in here from my very close friend, Chris. And this is the injury report. Thank you, Chris, for doing this. And I am opening it up. And Michael Alihado, they list, is good to go for a week too. It was an undisclosed, is what it said.

56:40I didn't think there was anything that should have been disclosed or undisclosed. I thought he was just getting read. So that is interesting to see that as undisclosed. He did set out practice, of course. Okay, so what I am seeing here also, Chris, this is not exactly the injury report. It's about injuries for one person. And it's just about Mike up. But thank you for that at least. They do mention that he set out practice, struggled in the loss, and saying that he is good to go. They say despite missing practice, that the quarterback sat out, simply to rest following two tough games, the signal caller will look to bounce back against a Mexico state. But I'm trying to see if there's any other guys on the undisclosed. And I think it's too early. And I think I look at it this way. If it's going to be on a third day, which it is, they're not going to have it at like 6 a.m. Hawaii time. I think it would be a little bit later in the day. But we'll check on that a little bit later to see if there is more on that. When I return, we're going to have volleyball tickets

57:41to give away for tomorrow night against Central Arkansas and some impressive stats. All that I had with the Gary Dickman show on ESPN, Honolulu. Wanna let you know that you can get to know the people with stories to tell. I feel so bad that I wasn't able to pull up that Instagram site that I had the classes that the SEC students are allowed to take. I guess it is mostly for athletes. And it bothers me so much that I started scrolling during the break. All my followers on Instagram and out of 2751, I think I got about 2500 left. So bear with me for about eight minutes while I'm just joking. Well, I'm not joking about not getting it and how many followers I had, but I got to find that and I'm not going to give up that easily for that. But what I will do is switch a little bit and do something a little bit more pleasant for the audience. And that is offer free volleyball ticket. I've got a pair for tomorrow night. Hawaii going up against Central Arkansas today.

58:42And tomorrow, Tiff Wells on the call, Tiff Wells will be joining me in about 14 minutes or so. And you can get tickets for Friday night's match by simply answering this trivia question. What number does Tally Hockets wear? Tally Hockets, great player from Israel. What number does she wear? 80829615, 100 is our phone number. Give us a call at that number and those tickets will be yours. Later on in the morning and afternoon, Kenoa and Billy will have tickets for both football and volleyball, Chris and Josh, same deal there. And we have anybody on the phone yet, Chris? Not yet, okay, it's the phone line to open. And if you want to take a shot at that for some volleyball tickets, feel free. I am going to get to the impressive stat in a second. Let me get to another text, a couple of text. One of them, who's in charge of the Clipper? Is Hawaii giving them money to play here? No, no, no, that's not how it worked. And actually, I believe would be where Hawaii

59:43is making money on the Clipper is playing here. They are renting out Bank of Arena at the Stan Sheriff Center on Sunday, October 4th. They are also renting it out for however many days of practice the Clippers will be at Bank of Arena at the Stan Sheriff Center. That's what they'll be practicing for good three, four, or five days. And the Golden State Warriors, of course, are practicing at BYU Hawaii. But yeah, they pay for that. And I don't know how it works with the ticket revenue as far as we get a portion of it. We meaning the University of Hawaii. But yeah, Hawaii makes money on this deal. Not as much as maybe the Clippers would get, but yeah, it's something along those lines. By the way, real quick on something I read by Pablo Torrey last night, the NBA did not want to punish the Clippers and Steve Balmer as much as they did. They gave him a choice to negotiate and get down from the $30 million fine and the five first round draft picks that they lost. He didn't want that.

1:00:44He was so adamant and so strong with his thoughts and comments about how he was getting a raw deal. He didn't want to negotiate. He was just so disgusted. Kind of interesting there. On the phone, Chris, we have... Why Manolo Mike? Hey, Mike, how's it going? Yeah, my best friend. How are you, Bobby? Good, good. Are you playing for volleyball tickets? Yeah, I got that. Good. Okay, you sound very confident. Okay, Tally Hock is where it's number nine. Number nine, you are correct, Mike. Good job. You got some volleyball tickets. How does that feel? Yeah, just for your information. Yeah, my niece really called me a vocal. She used to wear number nine. Whoa. Okay, so you had a little advantage there. Well, either way, you got it. Well, it's pretty cool. Lily, of course, one of the greats ever to play for the Rainbow Wahini and hopefully Tally will end her career at somewhat on the same level. She's had a very good career for us. Congratulations, Mike. Hang on the phone.

1:01:44Chris will get some information until you have to get your prizes. Thanks, Bobby. All right, thanks, Mike. Good job. There are more opportunities to win later in the morning. Again, with Kenoa and Billy and then with Chris and Josh later on this afternoon. They will be on... They'll have a full show today from three to six. And they... Chris, the football game, as I mentioned, will be on the new AM 1420. So you can get ready for some good football from Australia. I am going to get that impressive stat. This is a weird one. But I like to do some of the, you know, non-normal types of stats. I mean, I could say who's got a long hitting streak or who had 30 point games, 12 games in a row. That's kind of fun in a way. But I could do a little bit of outside the box in a way. And this just shows the stat that I'm going to get to. It shows how things are so different than they used to be. And this involves the NF... Actually, the college football, I should say.

1:02:45And I saw this. Thankfully, this one I took a screenshot so I could read it to everybody. This is a listing of the college football games on Saturday. And the times and channels they are on. The reason I bring it up is incredible. And I know some people get a little confused with the NBA this past season because they went from TNT and ESPN to ESPN and NBC and Amazon and all over the place. Well, for college football now, it has been kind of confusing if you look at it. And I always, like at Ruby Tuesday, I will on Friday night make a listing of all the games to show on Saturday because I'm normally not there in the morning. If at all, the afternoon and the boys playing, I'm not there. And I tell them what channels they're on. They're pretty good. The people there are finding games here and there. But this is where there's so many different channels. I'm gonna give you the channel with college football this weekend just on TV first. ABC CBS Fox, NBC, the CW, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, TNT, FS1, USA,

1:03:54ACC network, SEC network, big 10 network, CBS sports network. That's 15 different channels. Now, in addition to that, you have ESPN plus. And they have got streaming, I would say, 28 more games on their streaming services. That's crazy. Back in the day, it wasn't that long ago. They used to have pay-per-view games. So you would get the games on Saturday. You would get basically ABC and CBS, ESPN, ESPN2. And then NBC had basically only Notre Dame game. And that was kind of it. And then you would get pay-per-view. And you would have to do it kind of like the NFL Sunday ticket. I think it went through spectrum though, or your local cable provider, wherever you were. And you would get basically all the ABC, ESPN game. And there were a lot. And again, you had to pay for it. I don't know why they did away with that

1:04:56because it seems like they were making money on it. But maybe with the advertising and spread out of course these other networks, it's better financially. But that's incredible. And definitely, I guess a little confusing. I mean, I know in the Friday star advertiser, they will list the Saturday schedule. I was telling one of the bartenders last week at Ruby Tuesday that for Saturday is week one where almost the entire country was playing. I don't know if anybody still has not played yet. There were 55 games listed to be on TV. Not just streaming, not including streaming. 55 games that were on TV. And the reason I make them a list also, because I don't think there's a lot of interest, and I look at a game for this week. Here's a game that I don't think I will list. I don't think too many people are gonna really want to see UTSA Texas San Antonio against Texas State. But if you do want to watch it, it's on the CW. Other games that probably, you know, the thing is most of these games are kind of interesting.

1:05:57Although they have Appalachian State, Eastern Carolina. Maybe Wake Far is Purdue, but there's so many games and so many channels. And then if you don't find your game on a network, you can go to streaming. The streaming games aren't as nearly attractive. One of them is Weber State at Colorado. Florida against Campbell. You see Davis, FCS goal going at SMU. Michigan, Jimmy Western Michigan. They're all fans now against Monmouth, but not any big, you know, power fork type team on that. But overall, there are games everywhere. So I thought that was a little bit different. And when I saw this graph, it just stands out even more as far as how many networked, how many stations are having college football. I don't get this opportunity that often, if at all, I would love to be able to spend a Saturday. And I've done it in the past, because when I'm off from Ruby Tuesday, it's usually when there's UH play. Like when Hawaii has to buy in a couple of weeks,

1:06:59I'll be working at Ruby Tuesday, but I would love to have a full Saturday off where I could just sit around from basically eight or nine in the morning, not even at six, eight or nine in the morning, and just watch college football till seven or eight at night. That would be kind of a bucket list thing to do that again. And I know people do that. I get a little NVS when I hear Billy and Kenoa talk about how they just watch this game and that game and all this game. And I don't get as many opportunities, unfortunately, and I understand how it works, but that would be kind of cool. And with all these games, I mean, I'm one of those guys that would switch channels, when I am home for maybe half the day, I do that, it's hard not to. And when you got like six, seven, eight games on at a time, if one game's a blow out, yeah, you got to switch to the other game. And maybe there's a commercial, and then you switch to the other game. And then you realize you forgot to switch back and you missed a touchdown or a big play. But anyway, I thought that was pretty interesting.

1:07:5915 different networks brought casting games this week. By the way, if you are interested, UNLV is at North Texas. That game is on ESPNU. I am looking to see if there's any other mountain West teams on here, actually, the big game of the day. And I believe we'll be having it here, but Ohio State and Texas. That's the one. That's one, that'll be a 130 PM kickoff. That's gonna be the biggest matchup of the season. I saw where Ohio State is one in four against rank teams when they're in an underdog. So they're not usually an underdog. And they are this week because they're at Texas. By the way, I don't know if anybody has heard this involving Ohio State. Ryan Day, their head coach, decided to have senior day, a little bit different than everybody else. He decided to have it on last Saturday's first game of the season. He doesn't want the distraction at the end of the season.

1:08:59So he's doing it week one, home game one. I thought that was, I don't know, I don't like that. I don't know how the players feel. I didn't see any response. I would imagine if I'm a fan, let's think of it as Hawaii did it. It's not the same. When you're playing in your last game and you get acknowledged and your family's there and that's the end, that is more moving. It's more emotional. It's more significant. You're gonna have senior day and then you got 12 more football games to play. I don't know, I did not like that. I mean, I know he's a very successful coach and all that but nobody else has ever done that. I thought that was up beyond a strain. Anyway, we're gonna switch gears, talk some rainbow, walk any volleyball with Tip Well joining us in just a second. It is the Gary Dickman show right here right now on ESPN. Honolulu, we've got a lot in store this weekend, another great sports weekend. It kind of gets underway tonight with Rainbow Walking a volleyball first of two matches

1:10:00against Central Arkansas. They've had an interesting nickname. I've never heard of a school nickname where it's a Sugar Bears and I'm not sure, well anyway, I could go a little further but I probably shouldn't. But anyway, that is the name of the team. We'll find out a little bit more about them as we are joined by the voice of Rainbow Walk any volleyball and Rainbow Warrior volleyball and ESPN, Honolulu will care them at little over 12 hours from now at 6.45 pm. Tip Well joined the show. Tip, I appreciate you joining me on Game Night. Good morning Gary, yes. Sugar Bears is definitely a nickname I've never heard before but hey, it's something different than Care Bears. So there you go. There you go. We have played them I think in football or men's basketball years ago. I don't remember the nickname of Sugar Bears though. That wouldn't be one that I think I would remember. I remember Sugar Babies was a good candy but anyway, Sugar Bears a little unusual. Find out a little bit more about them in a second or two. I know they had a tough start to the season

1:11:01but I want to talk to you first about last weekend. I think it was hard to look at last week's Outrigger Invitational with Hawaii winning all three matches and being the champion especially without Shalay Reed which we'll get into and culminating in that Sunday five set thriller against UC San Diego when they were down two sets to one and I believe they were down by a point lay then tied at 24 all. That easily could have ended in San Diego's favor. The way they played from that point on I think showed a lot about this team. What were your impressions first about that exciting five setter? I think you captured it quite well. Their ability to just bounce back and find a way and for them to be down in the match by a set two separate times. They were down one nothing. They were down then two one and just for them to figure out they're down to one yes and then to find out and figure out a way late like you said, down 23-22 close that set on a 401 run and then just basically blow up

1:12:01blow open that fifth set. And yes that fifth set score a little bit closer than really how it was. I won 158 but they were serving for the match at 14-3. And I think for them I just showed them that they have that moxie that way to bounce back and just find a way to win. And like you said without having Shalei read multiple players stepped up throughout the entire weekend and most notably was Panna Rock-Kythe, the MOP of the Outer Rigger and was later named off into player the week in the conference on Monday. So I think it's just the ability for them to figure it out bounce back and just find a way and after being down in the set, losing a set as well. Just the ability to three minutes in between sets, figure things out and just flush out that previous set that you lost and just come back with a blank slate and figure out a way to win and they did so. I went to the Baylor match a little over a week ago and I was really impressed with Panna. That was the first time I had seen her and she showed a lot. I want to get your, I guess, evaluation.

1:13:03How would you describe her strengths and what she has meant to this team early on? You mentioned her accolades from last weekend. How would you describe her game overall? Someone that doesn't want to lose. And I think for her, you see this with a lot of players throughout every sport. Once it gets to your senior year, everything sort of starts to click. And I think especially when you go back in and players that are juniors, they realize this is an upperclassman and you get into your senior year. It's like this is my last first time starting Qualcomm, my last first opening weekend. There's a lot of last first times throughout your collegiate career. And I think for her, it's been a difficult road for her. Started her career, produced Fort Wayne, transferred after two years to Dayton, left Dayton after one year and eventually coming out here. And again, all of these players that are on this roster aren't recruited by this current coaching staff. And she's been here since the spring was in the Semper transfer after the 2025 season. And I think for her, just has been able to become Maclimated.

1:14:03She's very happy that she's out here. And she would join us in the post game on Sunday. And yes, she's very, very far away from her family. But just for her to have that second family that is out here and just very, very happy and very appreciative, as are the entire team, to have 3,000, 4,000 plus fans for each match and just getting that second win. And they stand for set point. They're behind them in a year. Let's go boze. And for someone that's only been here for less than a year, it's really helped her get off to a very strong start this season. Tiff, well, joining us on ESPN, Honolulu 92.7 FM in AM 1500, which is where you'll hear him at 645 this evening, first of two against central Arkansas. Joshua Walker has said a lot of things that I find very interesting. And this one point where he talked about this past weekend with beating Utah Tech, LMU, and UC San Diego, he said he was very proud of his team

1:15:04because all three of those teams had different strengths. And the Rainbow Ahini had to adjust each night to their opponent. And he was very proud that they were able to do that. Talk about that, the ability to adapt and adjust and how important of a factor that was in this past weekend with winning three matches. It goes to the Scouting Report. And it's a credit to all members of the coaching staff for putting together very extensive Scouting Reports. And I think when you hear that from Coach Joshua Walker, it's the fact that Utah Tech had come in, had been a very good blocking team after week one. They were averaging over almost 2.5 blocks per set. And Hawaii only was blocked four times for a three-set match. They never let Utah Tech feel comfortable for the most part of that match. Yes, that third set got a little bit dicey, but again, Hawaii figured things out, found the way to win that match in three. And sometimes, you know, when you have a non-conference tournament, it can be a little interesting because you're having three

1:16:07Scouting Reports over three consecutive days or three and four days like the case was for Hawaii last year. So your ability to watch films, see the Scouting Report, you see the team live, you see the team of your opponents, play live, you know, a match or two at least. And just to play an L&U team that had been offensively very good, they were hitting almost 272.80 for the season, had two players that were averaging over four kills per set. And I think just offensively for Hawaii's durability, yes, the match went five. Yes, those two players that had been averaging a lot of kills per set for LMU through the first week and that first match of the tournament, they were slowed down offensively, you know, percentage wise, it wasn't the greatest for them. They still got their kills, but Hawaii's defense really frustrated at LMU and then you throw in that EC San Diego match on Sunday, the block party. Hawaii with 18 blocks, they're most in a little over a decade and just overall defensively. None of the teams hit over 225.

1:17:08Everyone was under that percentage and yes, the blocking gets a lot of credit for that, you know, that effort and how they slowed everybody defensively through the weekend, but I think just as a whole, the way they're, the way this group figures things out and just collectively finds ways to slow the opponent down. When you mentioned the blocking, speaking of blocking, middle blocker, a millionaire, a semester, she is doing really well in that area right now. In fact, she leads the mountain west with 30 blocks. Do you expect the success with the blocking that we saw this past weekend to continue? I mean, does it more dependent on the opponent or is that something that you think would be more of a strength that's here than we saw maybe last year? I think it's a combination of both. And I think if, again, whenever we have a conversation, we always river back to serving past. Right. If you can win the serving past game, if you can keep the opponent running their offense from eight to 10, 12 feet off the net, you make them predictable, that really helps your blockers and helps your back row as well.

1:18:09So I think it's gonna be a combination of both. This could be a strength of this Hawaii group, but it also could be a dependent on how the match goes and what the opponent can do after their ability to what they do with that first ball concept. As far as Shalai Reed, the outside hitter who was named preseason all mountain west, what I was told last week is that she's day to day, is that still how she is right now as far as the approach for her moving forward? As far as I'm concerned, yes. And again, it's that the right shoulder injury that, yes, you hope it's something for her to come back sooner rather than later, the positive was than it was reported from Billy Holgo, you hear from in about 13 minutes with Kennell on last pop sports. You heard from Coach Joshua Walker last week that it's not a season ending injury. And I think that's what he went through last year, first with Tally and then Stella Damie, having two pin hitters off for the year with a different season ending injuries. I think caring those words from the medical department

1:19:13or from the medical staff, or regarding Shalai, that's the first positive. But again, yes, as much as we know, as much as we can say, it is the right shoulder injury day to day remains to be seen. We'll see what happens when we get to the arena later on today. Yeah, hopefully sooner than later for her return. Tell us a little bit about the opponent for tonight and tomorrow I know Central Arkansas, the Sugar Bears are O-5 right now, but they've had success in recent years though. They have, and their team that started, they've started off a little bit slow the last couple of years. You look, you know, 2-8 in 2024, 1-4 a year ago, a team that made the NCAA tournament last year. And this is when yes, they're O-5 to start this season. But I think when we all got accustomed to how former associate coach, Cloudbackstreet, you know, scheduled the non-conference, and he really played the RPI game very well. And you've seen that with an L&U, obviously with San Diego, of course, Baylor, you know, everything can be said about being a top 25 team.

1:20:15But when you kind of look at these group of six schools and a figure trying to figure out, yes, it's going to be figured out, you know, a year, maybe two years out, how, sometimes you can't really plan to figure out how good they're going to be in a couple of years. You're just kind of looking at what they did most recently, maybe in the NCAA tournament. They're part of the whack and the A-stun that combined to become the United Athletic Conference. So it's the first year conference for the Sugar Bears. O-5, they've had a tough go of it early on. They don't play a whole match. They don't play their first home match until September 24th. They've been all over the country, been to Colorado, been to Mississippi, they're here in Hawaii, they go to Iowa next week. So they're really utilizing their non-conference to help boost their RPI, yes, their O-5, but trying to just build some positive things as they move into their conference plan a couple of weeks. Well, we wish them the best rest of the season after this week and hopefully they'll leave here O-7, that is the hope, that is the goal, and hopefully the rainbow hockey,

1:21:15and he will continue that winning streak at three right now and hopefully getting four and five today and tomorrow. Then they'll hit the road to Las Vegas for the lucky Aces volleyball invitation. We'll get into that next week. Tiff, thank you so much for waking up early. I appreciate it. We'll listen to tonight of course and tomorrow and look forward to hearing a happy recap as Hawaii hopefully will get the win once again. Thanks again. Anytime Gary, have a good one. All right, thank you so much. Tiff, well joining us on ESPN, Honolulu, Wilkirah, Camin, little less than 12 hours from now. Central Arkansas, the Sugar Bears, the opponent tonight and tomorrow, opportunities to win free tickets for tomorrow. Later on with Let's Talk Sports and Pacheco and Hart. Real quick, I only got about a minute and a half left. Mark, Fineri joined the show tomorrow and I've just been informed. I will have some free tickets for the New Mexico State Hawaii football game that I'll give out tomorrow. Couple of texts. 13, 12 win would be good. I'd mention that earlier. I'd be happy with that. The tech says that would be good that it's a win

1:22:17but it's still very concerning and not looking good for the rest of the season that they're only able to score 13 points. The offense has struggled. I agree with that. I was just throwing out of, for instance, that they only win by one. I know people would not like it like you just mentioned but I'll just be okay with the win. First things, first win would go a long way. Other tech, Hawaii doesn't blow out anyone. A 14 point win is fine. Let the big shot schools have their bombastic blowouts. Okay, thanks. Before I leave you, I looked up a couple of the unusual classes for college students. Couldn't find the list I had earlier but I only have a few seconds. This is the most impressive one. You can go to Santa Clara and take a class called the Joy of Garbage. Garble, garbology is what they call they the study waste management. I'll set that one out. Let's talk for it to next. See you tomorrow at five. Aloha.