The Craig Way Show
Craig Way joins from the Peach Bowl Media Day
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We are up until 2 and up until 5 p.m. with you here on today's show. Media Day at the Peach Bowl, less than 48 hours away from Texas and Arizona State. I'm happy to be joined by Craig Wei now, who joins us live from his hotel room, I'm guessing in Atlanta, Georgia. Hold on, we're still, we're not getting Craig's voice here, so let's work on getting Craig with us here, as Craig about to join us live from his hotel room in Atlanta, Georgia. As Texas takes on Arizona State, we may have to pivot to the phone line here. There's always some sort of, some sort of technology issues that we have to encounter, at least at some point, that's how radio, live radio works. We'll work on getting Craig here on the phone line here in just a second, as Texas takes on Arizona State. He did visit already with Quinn Ears, Quinn Ears and Bert Auburn at some point today, so we'll be able to play you those conversations as well as hear from Coach Steve Sarkeesian, Kyle Flood, Michael Taft, Quinn Ears, a lot of good content because at Media Day, the cool thing about Media Day is usually Texas fans just get used to hearing from Steve Sarkeesian and the same five, six, seven players, but at Media Day, you can visit with pretty much anybody you want to be able to visit with, and that includes guys like Bert Auburn or maybe Jeff Banks, a special teams coach. And now I believe we do have Craig Way on the phone line. Mr. Way, how are you? Well, maybe not. Craig, are you able to hear us? Yeah, I got you now. There we go. I did. So you hear me OK, down on the phone? Here, you're great. Here, you're great. Thanks for being able to pivot with this. And I was just opening up with the fact that usually Craig during the season, obviously, you hear from Steve Sarkeesian and you hear from, you know, five or six players usually rotation of, you know, Jadi Barron or Calvin Banks, Alfred Collins, Quinn Ears, but the cool thing about Media Day at these ball games is that not only do you hear from Steve Sarkeesian and Kenny Dillingham, you also get to hear from guys like Arch Manning or Byron Carrington or Jeff Banks, guys who Texas fans in the media don't get to be able to don't aren't able to visit with every single day. But at games like this, you're able to. Yeah. And by the way, as I get ready to answer this question, it'll probably be a setting on your end, but there's some rocking out music going through right now. So I was having a little bit of a difficulty trying to hear it. But I think I got what you were saying, but the music just blowing the doors off right now that's going through. There we go. Now we're good. We're all good. You press the magic button. So we're okay now. So to your point, what you were saying is yes, you can have a situation where you get to visit with most and really the vast majority of the players, the student athletes, not all of them, obviously, everybody came over. The entire team came over and was given the tour of the college football, the fame and all that. But while the ones who had media responsibilities were getting going in this adjacent room, this very large room and had full size like college football, gold post in there. And it was a good backdrop for it. And of course, I had posted to, I had done an Instagram post where it showed that great wall of helmets. When you first walk in, every college football helmet, I think Division One, Division Two, Division Three, all of them were up there. Somebody remarked that the Texas helmet was directly above the one from Emporia State, which is Division Two School in Kansas. I don't know what the rhyme or reason was, not only for that one, but for all of the helmets. I'm not sure what the rhyme or reason was, it wasn't alphabetical, but it was very colorful. So all of the student athletes who were being made available within in that room, and then some of the other ones, you know, like I said, the entire team went over, but not every, you know, reserve or walk on or whatever took part in the actual interviews. But a great many of the players did. You mentioned Bert Auburn, I sat down with Bert and had a good visit with him. Also, I hope you got it. I also sent you one with Johnny Barron, a one-on-one with Johnny. And the Quinn Ewer's conversation was more of kind of like what you played in the prior segment. It was kind of a general overall media gathering around him. Nobody was actually getting any one-on-ones with him, because he was in such high demand. And they had them all, you know, seated at tables. It was like a kind of a smaller version of Super Bowl media day. And I've covered some Super Bowl media days. And that's just craziness for you getting these platforms where these guys are up. But everybody was kind of situated, including SART. They were all taking part in it. And it was very orderly and very well-run. And you just, you had to kind of pick your spots to do a one-on-one. Otherwise, you're sharing the time with the other media gathered there who wanted to get some sound bites. So I was able to sit down with Johnny Barron and one also with Bert Auburn. Quinn Ewer's was kind of being shared by everybody. We'll make sure to get to those interviews at some point throughout the show. Some great audio, not just from you, Craig, but also that's been posted on the media website and just all over Twitter from both teams. Now, you mentioned the College of Ball Hall of Fame in Atlanta. And I believe I went there maybe 2015, 2016. And there's a part in the Hall of Fame. There's an exhibit, maybe a section where you can kick. I think it's like a 35-yard field goal. I'm curious, Craig, wait, is that still there? Did you attempt it? And could you also maybe kick for Texas on Wednesday? Yes, no and no. And the reason why is quite simple, Cameron. You mentioned the 35-yard thing. That's the room where they had all the media gathered where it was. Like I said, there was a four-size goal post here. So I'm sure it's the exact same room, because I didn't see it in any other part. It's the one where you've got all the field turf down there, and they've got full-size goal post in there. So if you went all the way to the back of the room, yeah, it'd be a 35-yarder. But it wasn't dressed up for that. It was set up for all of the media interviews. They had tables, and chairs, and platforms, and things like that in there. I'd probably just say that I am one-for-one when attempting the 35-yard field goal at the College Football Hall of Fame. Not saying I could be a starting major. Down the medal? Down the medal. Shades of Justin Tucker. I do share the same first-name as Cameron Dicker, who I believe may be a pro bullet. Okay, this Texas Arizona state game, Craig. What are your general thoughts going into it, and what's the level of confidence you're picking up from this Texas team? Well, first of all, let me start with the comments that you aired from Sam Levitt, and I'm right there with you, Cam. I didn't see anything wrong with what he said. If you pay close attention to what he's saying, he said I'm out to prove that I'm the best quarterback in this game. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. He didn't walk in there saying I am the best quarterback in this game. He said I'm out to prove it. Now, one thing I think is a little bit silly, but this is the way both pro and college sports, the whole disrespecting thing where he said people have been counting me out all year. Who? Who's been counting out? He's had a great year, and I know he was a transfer from Michigan state, and maybe at first there was some, you might say some, oh, I don't know, speculation or probably folks weren't that optimism, some pessimism about what he'd been able to do. But I think we saw very early in the season when he was capable of doing it. I know I saw it personally when I was at the game when they played at Texas State get a long touchdown running that game. And the other day, of course, we had my friend, Tim Healy on the show, the play-by-play voice of the Sun Devils, and he and I were chatting today about Sam Levitt's progression, and how far he's come. And this is a guy that not much was expected of in the minds of some, but as the season went on, people could tell that he was really, really good. So the whole thing about I've been counted out all season, I'm like, well, most of the people who are following the game are not counting you out. I know Sark is not counting you out. I know there's long more defenses not counting you out, and we heard Quinn talk about him as well. He's had a really fine season. And when you have a running back, like Cam's cataboo, it's cool to make you better. He also had Jordan Tyson until he got injured, who is a tremendous receiver, and he's still got quality receivers. So they're going to present a challenge. Sure, they will. Has Texas faced better offenses? Yes, they have this year, but they haven't faced a better running back than what they're going to see from cataboo. I've talked about this at length all season long. I've thought he was something special. I saw that last year in him, but he runs tough, he runs hard, but he can catch the ball out of the backfield. So he's multifaceted. And so, yes, the long warrants will try to aim to slow him down and get pressure in on Levitt. And if they can do that, I think the defense can be successful. On the offensive side, I think the long warrants know that what they've been doing a blade, the old run to win thing. If you can run the ball well with effectiveness, you have a chance to win, but they're going up against a tough rushing defense. They led the big 12 in rushing defense. 27th in the nation, that's respectable against the run. So they've been a little more susceptible to the path. There's 70th in the nation against the path. And I do think that the long warrants will be able to throw the ball against Arizona State. I think Isaiah Bond has been feeling better and better. We're going to find out about Cam Williams, whether he can go or not, he's still banged up. And I think everybody else is going to be good to go. Calvin Banks is definitely going to be good to go. So we'll find out about those other guys, what their situation is tomorrow, probably in the final news conference. Always Sark may tell us it may be game-dying decision both for Cam Williams and for Isaiah Bond. We'll find out. But I think they can move the ball on them as well. Last thing for you, Craig, before we let you go, what's your schedule like this week? And even today and tomorrow, the media day, what's looked like for you tomorrow. And then obviously Wednesday, game day before you travel to Norman. And then from Norman, you travel back home and then to College Station on Saturday. Yeah, it's a little busy, isn't it? We have this time of year, I always refer to it as the overlap. And believe it or not, the busier overlap session usually starts in late February when baseball starts. And we've got baseball and men's and women's basketball because there are multiple games. And so for about six weeks, that goes on. This, depending on how successful on one football team is, it could go on another three or four weeks. We'll see. But with regard to this week, obviously to tomorrow morning, I'll be down there for the final head coaches, news conference. So it'll be that I'll go out to the stadium tomorrow afternoon when the setup is going on. I'll have some social media things on that out to the stadium. Of course, the game is at noon simple time and one o'clock Eastern time. But I'll be at the stadium early. We'll do that. And then as soon as we sign off there, it's like one o'clock or one can to be exact Eastern time kick. I have an eight 15 flight Eastern time. So I'm going to be beating a hasty retreat to the Atlanta Jackson Heart Field International Airport after the game to catch a flight out of Atlanta through DFW and get up to Oklahoma City late late on Wednesday night. Texas women open SEC play against an outstanding Oklahoma team on Thursday night at the Lloyd Noble Center and then I'll be out on Friday as I make my way back down and head over to College Station and then Friday night. I mean Saturday night, we've got the SEC opener for the lawnmorns playing at Rita Rina. So it's and then come back on Sunday and have the home opener for the women against Arkansas. So yeah, it'll be busy the rest of this week and as long as the long word football team is continuing to advance, it'll stay busy and I'm perfectly fine with that. You know, hearing you just answered that question, Craig makes me wonder if maybe we should hire you a travel secretary. You know, maybe a George Cassianza assistant to the traveling secretary because your schedule, I do not know how you keep up with it. Well, it's a combination of a couple of things. I mean, you know, the beauty of having football and men's and women's basketball schedules, you can see on the schedules where those games are and at what times those games are. So all you have to do is kind of work around it, the necessary stuff. Also, the University of Texas has an outstanding travel agent that they work with and they try to help me sum on things that I have to set up. So it all works out really, really well and it probably needs to in order to do these many assignments, these many games. I mean, we come off a week there before Christmas, we're at the six high school football state championship games and the Texas Clemson game and a women's basketball game. So it was a busy time to do and it remains a busy time. But like I said, I like it. I like it. I love being able to call games. I love being able to get to the travel makes it interesting. I had a really tight connection last night at DFW because the flight from Austin was late getting in, but I got in before they closed the door behind me. And so there you go. You go on. Final thing here, Cam, Los Angeles Rams, NFC West Virginia. They had to have all kinds of weird stuff happen and it did in truth, really, that the teams that they needed to win so they could have that strength of everything were all favored to win their games. But until they win them, you don't know and it's like a parlay, right? So they had to have they had to have the Bengals win. They had to have the Bills win. They had to have the Vikings win. And they had to have the commanders win. And if one of those teams had fallen, they would have needed the 49ers to beat the Lions tonight. I don't see that happening. But that coupled with that to hold on for dear life, went over Arizona. So yeah, they they got to win their NFC West chance going to be interesting to see how the seating goes, Cam, because if Washington wins out, they would hold the tiebreaker on Green Bay. If the Rams wide up as a three C, I'm going to tell you, as good as Jesus, Jane Daniels has had, I'd rather the Rams face the commanders than the Facebook Packers in the first round. We already, seen that movie, the Packers won in LA earlier this year. So did the Vikings. So well, the Rams beat the Vikings, but they they've lost to the Lions. So they've seen those NFC North teams. I'd be I'd feel much better about it if they were going up against an NFC East state. And the pack nearly came back against Minnesota last night, but could not complete the comeback, losing 2725. But congrats to the Rams and Craig, congrats to the Cowboys for losing by 40 points to the Philadelphia Eagles. It's just a great day for our favorite teams yesterday. You got a victory. You exaggerate. You exaggerate. They only lost by 34. They lost 41 to seven. So hey, listen, I need the commanders to beat the Cowboys this week in Arlington. I need them to I need them to have nothing against the Cowboys, but I as a Rams fan, I need the commanders to win the lock up the six seed and the Rams to get the three seed. Like I said, I'd rather than face Washington than the face green bet. I'll think you'll get your wish. I believe you'll get your wish come next Sunday. But Craig, I'll let you go. I know you got things to get to. I look forward to visiting visiting with you and Roger from the booth on Wednesday. And I'm guessing the next time I'll see you will be my first time in college station attending a Texas A&M basketball game. So look forward to it. Yeah, that's going to be a special experience for you, Cam. Reed Arena, going to be going to be a special night. All right. Craig, thanks so much. We'll talk to you soon. You bet. All right. Craig, why? Visiting live from Atlanta, Georgia as Texas prepares for Arizona State. You heard him mention is sit downs with Bert, Auburn, Jadi, Barron, and Quinn Ewers. We will play those for you throughout today's show. Also have audio, Anthony Hill, Alfred Collins, Kyle Flood, the Texas offensive coordinator, Gunnar Helm, Quinn Ewers, all of it in scam scataboo. I keep saying scam cataboo. Cam scataboo with some interesting comments coming from media day as well. This Arizona State team, they are not lacking confidence, but I'll tell you what, feeling pretty good about Texas's chances come Wednesday. But we'll continue the preview this game here on the Craigway show. Just getting started on this Monday afternoon ranked number one in innovation 10 consecutive years. Arizona State University isn't just ahead of the curve. It's creating new paths to success. Learn from notable clinical and research faculty online. That's a degree better. Explore programs at asu online.asu.edu.
Craig Way joins Cameron Parker live from Atlanta to discuss Texas and Arizona State and his takeaways from Media Day.