All football, all the time…

Good afternoon, Wisconsin.

Welcome to WFHR's Playmakers!

Welcome to the game!

Welcome to the show.

Hope you're having a good day out there, everybody.

Thank you so much for joining us on this Wednesday edition of Playmakers.

Got your host, James J. behind the mic.

I am joined by our great friend, Michael Comer.

Michael, good to have you with us.

We appreciate the company, man.

We appreciate all of you joining us.

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Certainly, certainly.

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there is no NFL owner with good hair.

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715-424-2600, everybody.

Michael and I are going to get into, of course, high school football.

We'll be talking about a review of the weekend that we had

and the one coming up.

Certainly a jug that we're going to be talking about as well.

And as far as the old river jug, Michael,

one of the things I want to get into is the history of it.

And I also want to talk about something else with you, the audience.

And this is a two-parter, everybody.

We're going to talk about this on Friday as well as we gear up

for some great high school football this weekend.

I want to talk about your favorite rivalry trophies in all of sports.

I specifically am looking at college football.

But there's certainly a lot of other sports.

And a lot of other maybe rivalry trophies that might be out there

that I'm not thinking of.

So I want to make sure to cover the bases.

Anything you're thinking about there.

Our stat of the show is a really interesting one.

I don't think a lot of people know.

So we're going to have some fun with that as well.

We'll hit on high school sports and a little bit looking forward

to diving into that with you, Michael.

And I appreciate you being here again, man.

I also want to get into tailgates.

What is the most expensive tailgates in NFL?

Well, in football, yeah, NFL football had to double check.

Because I didn't want to pre-read this article.

I wanted to be with you in just getting this information

at the same time.

We get the real reactions.

The problem is I didn't read enough of the article

to know if it was college or NFL.

Right.

It is NFL.

It is NFL.

That's what I thought it was.

Getting into that a little bit too.

But Michael, right out the gate, just focusing on college football,

NFL right now.

What are your takeaways from the wonderful kind of like opening

week we had with NFL football?

And certainly the, I think the continuing of a great college football season already.

You know, you can take my takes for whatever the worth, you know.

Oh, yeah.

Mine too, man.

I mean, yeah, I did go three, you know,

and my fantasy football leagues has passed weeks.

So, I mean, I might have, you know, blind squirrel found a nut.

I am all in one.

I am all in one.

All in one.

But, you know, start with the, start with the NFL.

I guess, point to those chiefs look good and so to Detroit.

The Rams, man, that stinks that they lost Nakuwa for,

I mean, he's not going to be playing when Green Bay plays him.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I only caught a quarter and a half of the, the, the Packer Philly game.

Fair.

I was impressed with Green Bay, with how they played.

I was impressed with how Philly played.

I thought they both look good.

I thought the defense is okay.

You're, when you're playing against Sequon Barkley.

You're going to give up yards.

It doesn't matter.

You're, you're going to, you get what, three picks off of Jalen.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Jalen, Jalen hurts.

Excuse me.

Drew Blank on hurts.

And that hurt.

Nice.

But saving the boat.

Yeah, that's right.

But, I mean, you, you lose, or you take three, the,

the ball away from three stinking times.

Yeah.

And then you, I think you recover to fumble too.

Green Bay's defense is going to be ballhawking.

And they're going to have to, if, if Jordan Love is out for a while.

Now, the good thing is, I can say with X, I know that's probably another topic you want to talk about.

Green Bay schedule is very friendly.

This early part of the season.

Yeah.

So you can navigate this if he's out two weeks, three weeks for whatever it is.

Looking at other games.

Boy, the nine are so good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's weird to see some of the, like, it's, it shouldn't surprise us.

But sometimes it does when you're seeing these good teams that you counter that being good.

And yes, they're good.

It, it sounds like the most normal thing that should be, but it doesn't happen all the time in the NFL.

And to see, especially with the San Francisco where you've had all the drama leading up to this,

there are certain guys that the ink was still dry on the contract that they were,

before the game even started.

And they're out there.

You're playing without your best offensive player, arguably.

Yeah.

And, and you just, and you're going up against what most people will tell you is a good defense.

Yeah.

You know, I, I think that there are very few times where I agree with a lot of the talking heads or anything like that.

But one of the things that I think we can all take from the opening week is that it's the opening week.

Right.

You're not going to get the best of anybody.

You're oftentimes going to get, it's not surprising to see the backup in Wilson.

Was Wilson or the running back that blew up on Monday?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Not surprising.

Not only because of the Shanahan offense and what that has history, not just that Shanahan,

but other Shanahan's have done with a running back and being able to take, you know,

make them into a diamond and all that.

Not only those things, but he had, he had preseason football in him.

Yeah.

He played preseason football.

Yeah.

His body was conditioned for this.

His body was ready to take hits.

His body was ready to go in the goal line and go right in.

It is going to be very similar to what we've seen with the NBA and the dissociation

where the NBA had more goodwill than any sports league in the world, especially during the pandemic.

And they've almost just about blown all of it by not only the way the players will sit, not only that.

Load management, which I do believe is living up to the first part of that word of phrase.

Yeah.

It really is because we haven't seen, there is no evidence to show that it works.

If it worked, I actually wouldn't have too much of a problem with it.

If you told the fans, hey, why aren't playing tonight?

Five dollar tickets.

Well, that's, you know, make it actually reasonable.

Work with the fans, all of these things.

But there's things that they'll never do, of course, because they're all mighty dollars.

Like playing in like playing in Brazil and France and Germany and wherever.

When it's cool to see these teams, I think, especially for me as somebody that always looks at our division,

I'm excited about Detroit.

I'm not excited about playing them twice a year, but I'm excited about what they can do in the division

and just to see Detroit doing well.

It's going to take a couple of years of this for me to be like, ah, Detroit.

Those darn lions.

I don't know.

I can't feel that way yet about it.

I just can't.

I get really worked up about these teams.

I still am living.

I'm here with you, Michael.

I'm engaged.

I'm doing my job.

I'm focused.

But my soul.

My heart is still going over just watching over and over again.

The blocked punt that Notre Dame and I you had a Notre Dame.

That's where I really am.

That's what I'm still doing.

I love rivalries.

I love some of these things.

But as far as Detroit, I've never been able to work myself up against like really having a hatred for Detroit or even its players or anything.

I mean, I can say, well, I mean, Dominic and Sue.

We can talk about that.

We can talk about that one though.

Yeah.

But I, you know, walking around Lambo field the last few years playing the old Detroit lines.

And I got a more colorful name for them too.

I don't not break in any FCC rules, of course.

But I'd be okay with it.

But I'll hold that onto that one.

But I must say it's a walking season.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, I'll tell you what though.

I do miss being at Lambo for the aforementioned tailgates and the load.

They're not the lowly lions anymore that, you know, hey, you know, we're just here because we can.

No, we're past those days at, you know, looking back to your comment about load management and preseason ball.

When Pacheco went out for a couple plays against when when the Kansas City swifts took on the Baltimore Ravens.

Steele came in and boy did he look really good.

And I thought about picking them up and fantasy league and a couple of them because he's got tremendous upside as great flex.

So, you know, that's as much fantasy thought theories.

I'll really give because I don't know what I'm talking about.

But, but, you know, Kansas City, I thought they looked really good.

I'm looking at this game and Kansas City.

They look good Baltimore.

They look good too.

But I think Kansas City is going to do what Green Bay did in 2011 and play really well really early.

And they're still going to be good at the end.

But I don't know if they're going to be peaking when they want to.

You sent me up perfectly because I wanted to get into one of the important things I think that we maybe don't think about too much until we're actually in the middle of the season in the heart of actual NFL football being played.

Not preseason right now.

Right.

Games are being played.

We're in the middle of this.

This interesting kind of like a time where we just sit back and wait for our teams to prepare and get ready to play again.

There's nothing like it in sports where you're just waiting for a week to play for the next game and building to that.

And it's everybody knows what's coming and yet nobody knows what's coming.

It's such an interesting part of sports and the way that this game has played.

With that being said, the NFL season is quarters.

Yeah.

Just like a game.

And this first month of the season you just got to survive it if you're Green Bay.

You just got to go ahead and keep on playing well.

You can go, you know, we're not winless certainly.

But you can go with a negative record into the second quarter of the season and survive it.

Right.

We've seen teams win Super Bulls this way to what you're saying about Kansas City and some of these things.

And and and also to be fair too, I think, you know, Jordan love.

He heard his leg.

He heard his arm.

His arms fine.

His arms actually resting.

He's going to come into this in a couple of weeks with a very fresh arm,

especially because he didn't probably preseason football like probably should have.

Well, there's in like like a lot of other players, including on my team.

And that's not a shot at him or the Packers.

That's a shot at all of these teams and all of these people doing it.

I think the only person I ever saw really pulled this off was the Danian Tomlinson.

Yeah, that sounds weird.

That's that's the only guy I've ever seen in my lifetime by watching football

who took preseason games off or took the whole preseason off came in game one and was ready to go.

Adrian Peterson.

Yeah, yeah.

Both of these guys anomalies.

Both of these guys, like just you know anomalies and greet gods.

Like it's very different.

Very different.

Very not your average player.

One thing I was going to touch on with what you're talking about.

Just came across my phone.

Now anyone with in my opinion, so I'm just speaking on that.

And with half a brain knows that loves more than likely not playing this week.

I just came through on my phone that that La Flores leaving it open.

I do, I do like the gamesmanship of that of anything.

Even if it's not just that.

Right.

I mean, let's face it.

He is not going to play.

He shouldn't play in my opinion.

Yes.

Yes.

But if he does, I'll guarantee you when I'm sitting up in row 53 section 107, seat 31,

I can guarantee you that place is going to be deafening.

Will you be at the game this Sunday?

Oh, yeah, that's where I'm right on.

Right on, man.

Oh, that is awesome.

Oh, that is awesome.

If you have the show I call in, I'd probably get kicked out for doing so.

No live broadcasts without approval.

So that's I'm envious.

That's really cool.

That's going to be a lot of fun.

And I think that you, along with everybody else in that stadium,

is going to get a chance to see Malik Willis in real time and see what you got.

You got Sean Clifford sitting there who I think can cut, walk into that job.

And not I'm not saying he's going to be an all pro, but he knows the offense.

Yes.

You know what you got with him.

And I think you got a guy that is going to try not to lose you the game where with a good defense

and a nice set of receivers that can make almost anybody look good.

You know, he should be okay.

See what you got Malik Willis in real time against a team that is not a, I mean,

no NFL team should be taken lightly.

No, never, never.

But I don't know, I don't know that this is a game that I was circling on the calendar.

It was going to be love in it.

It was going to be interesting with Richardson and Taylor.

Yeah.

I mean, they can put up a lot of yards and a lot of points in a victory.

Right. Right. Right.

Another, another one that I just thought of and it was just happened this spring or this spring this fall.

That played a lot of preseason and didn't light it up granted its first game.

I watched a lot of those Bears preseason games and Williams tore it up in the preseason.

That offense, I mean, the Bears won in spite of their offense in that game.

Oh, yeah.

And Tennessee didn't do anything to help themselves either when they had a 17 point lead and they blew it.

It was almost like watching Atlanta and the Super Bowl again.

I sent a win.

Love it. So thank you, card.

Oh, yeah.

I think I did it for that win.

Some of those throws.

What are you?

I mean, I'm not a quarterback.

I'm not a football player.

What are you doing?

You don't get this position.

You don't get to be the number one pick and you don't get to win a Heisman trophy.

You don't get to be in this position or any of these things without pressure and without being every eyeball on you and waiting for this.

This is what there are more people waiting for him to fail than succeed.

And as soon as as soon as I saw that bottom stat line, I knew every little bit of this was coming.

And not and more importantly, he knew this was coming.

Oh, about the time to see quarterback.

Not Williams.

Williams.

Oh, you're talking Willie.

Okay.

And I will say, look at his stat line compared to Joe Burrows compared to other players.

It didn't play overseas in four of all this week.

Compared to Peyton Manning's in his first game, Peyton, you know, these things.

We have no idea, including me, have no idea how him or any of these other guys are going to be and how they're going to play.

And not just them, Anthony Richardson, Jordan Love.

Yeah.

All of these guys that have not played almost, they haven't even played two full seasons.

Right.

Most some of these guys.

And I don't mean just in professional football.

I mean, Anthony Richardson's case.

I don't know how much he's even played like two full seasons of football.

Yeah.

We have no idea there is too much money invested in these players that whether we want to or not,

whether they should be sitting or not, which I think is a wonderful discussion to have anytime anybody wants to have it.

Right.

They're going to play and for better or worse, we're going to see what they're like and what they're going to learn in real time,

just like I'm talking about Malik Willis.

It's kind of, if you can take a step back as a fan, it's kind of wild to think of and watch happen.

There's so much invested in this.

There's so many things that they over prepare for every football coach in America in any level is going insane over playbooks and how to beat the other team.

And we get to game day and like, yeah, I think we're going to go with our third string quarterback.

That's the best we got.

How did we get to this point?

How did we get to this point where this is the best we got?

We did all of the right things.

We got all the right players.

We have one guy go down and now we're just like, hey, you over there, how's your arm?

Yeah.

Not bad.

All right.

Hey, can we get a security up there to row 34?

This guy looks all right.

He looks like he might be the real deal.

That's kind of like when Jay Cutler went out in the NFC title game against Green Bay.

He goes out then you got what Chad, Chad Henny or whoever it was.

And then Caleb Haney.

And he almost brought him back.

Yeah.

And Chicago is one of the first places that birthed this.

But like the giants in New York and a lot of other places.

The backup quarterback is always the most popular person in the stadium, if not in the state.

Right.

To your point about Met LaFour announcing that Jordan Love is questionable.

I love the announcement.

I love how ESPN cannot wait for breaking news.

It does not breaking news.

We need a sounder for minor news.

But you're not breaking news.

It's important.

You want to know it.

But in that minor news.

Do do do do do do do do.

Minor news.

No, you steal it from the the price is right.

Bum bum bum bum.

Oh.

Yes.

Yes.

I like that.

I like that a lot.

As we're getting ready to go to our first time out, Michael.

I want to talk a little high school football with you.

Let's go ahead and preview or go over this weekend.

What stood out to you over the weekend games and certainly the game you took in.

Nice job, by the way, on the call.

Thank you.

That was a great game.

Great game.

Yeah.

I guess the first thing that I'm going to do is I'm going to give a big shout out to our friends just south of here.

Nikusa, three and all first times since 2021.

Go paper making.

And then, I mean, they, they controlled it.

It was a close game early, but they pulled away late.

They're not, I don't think they're going to be flashy.

But they're going to be efficient and they are hard knows it on defense.

Now, they're going to be tested this week with Berlin.

Well, we could talk about that another time.

Or a little bit later.

Poor Edwards.

How about hanging 30 points in the first quarter and leading 50?

Yeah.

Right.

He did the Oleberry Switzer, hang half a hundred by half time.

Yeah.

And they won 56-6.

Yeah.

Rapids and assumption.

You know, I'll go with the assumption first.

The game that I saw.

I mean, as Randy said, through nine minutes with nine minutes left, 2020 ball game.

But there was that fumble on that drive when assumption had a chance to take a lead and put all the pressure on the cardinals.

And that fumble score, fumble score.

Yeah.

And then just turned it over and down and scored again.

That was, you know, good night, Irene.

Unfortunately, in Rapids.

Wisconsin Rapids here, down 14, 14-0 had a pick six by Kyler Tritz.

Rumbled in 25 yards.

Missed the PAT.

14-6.

Well, that was all she could muster the offense.

It's really been really been struggling to this point.

And for Rapids, it's a lot like assumption.

It's going to be tough sledding up until the last couple of weeks.

And by then, it's just kind of going through the motions, which I hope I hope that both teams can straighten it out a little sooner.

Yeah.

But looking, being honest, I'm not going to pull any punches.

I'm going to tell you what I think.

It might be a tough sledding for the boys in red and white and blue and white.

Unfortunately.

Yeah.

This is where loyalties are tested.

This is certainly where your school loyalties test it.

Any of anybody in any school that you really rule for, you actually aren't really tested, of course.

I mean, I'm not being critical of high school kids.

I'm in my mid-30s.

I got better things to do with my time to be critical, mean to kids.

I'd never do that.

But just looking at it, looking at the matchups, it could be tough sledding.

Yeah, not only you, I, but this show will never, ever go so far as to go to a level to treat a high school athlete.

Never.

Anywhere other than a high school athlete.

And somebody that we appreciate and then appreciate their families and then appreciate everybody that is involved in high school athletics.

I do like to be able to dissect these games and give these kids the attention they deserve.

But I appreciate that about what you said there.

When it comes to this weekend's games, we are going to take some time with the point and rapids game, of course.

But other games that are on the schedule, you've got assumption at eye scan.

I just had to do that because it ran away.

It does that.

Poor Edwards and Almond Bancroft.

That shout out, Randy.

Also, of course, good games going on when Nekusa, Berlin and Nekusa.

That one is, as you're talking about, a home game for Nekusa.

You've got them coming to town and a chance to really show, make your mark.

Right.

I think if you're Nekusa and like, hey, we're not, we're not just some fat here.

This is a, we really, we've got something going on.

And, and I had a conversation with someone just the other day when I was,

a Sunday night watching football down at a local water and hole, being honest.

If Nekusa can beat Berlin, I do believe they have the inside track to winning the South Central conference.

Now, they still got to beat the Dells.

They still got to beat Adams.

They still got to beat Wapan and Ripon.

But, but looking at that, Berlin looking at their schedule, the little bit that I have, they score a lot of points.

Yeah.

But they allow a lot of points.

Yeah.

And Nekusa, they don't allow many points, but they're not scoring too terribly much either.

So we'll see it.

I mean, this is the first really, really big test because I don't know.

I mean, Westfield's decent, but I really don't know how good the first week team was point at.

And I'm not really too sure how good Boston is.

I think they're both old and three on it.

I'd have to double check.

But, I mean, that's the big one that stands out to me.

Now, another one.

Port Edwards, again, playing number eight team in the state and eight man with Almond Bancroft.

I thought they were eight.

Yeah.

I mean, Almond Bancroft, they just came off of a big win.

Controversial happening during that game.

Yeah.

We can talk about later if you want.

Yeah.

They beat Newman, 18 to 6.

I mean, that's a big win in those teams.

Andy Lewis, Almond Bancroft coach, used to coach a Port Edwards when they started playing eight player.

Great.

I didn't know.

Yep.

Nice guy.

Great guy.

Max just left Max Ayers.

I think he just left Port right when Andy was going to be playing air coaching.

So, I mean, they know each other.

They're very, they're very only separated by a year or two.

So, I mean, they're, they're, uh, that's going to be a fun one that they're big rivalry in all these schools or with those two schools in every sport baseball basketball football.

You name it big rivals.

So, it's going to be a lot of fun to see that one.

Uh, rapids in the jug and assumption going to the old teabirds of I scan.

Uh, you know, it's not an optometry clinic.

But, uh, that, the, the, the, the, the I scan game.

The I scan game might be a tough one.

That's another top.

Yeah.

Top six team in the state if I remember.

Yeah.

And point points tough.

Um, but I mean, the, the, the local teams are going to be tested.

Let's just put it that way.

And one of the things that, especially if you are looking at this in big picture and everything is these.

A lot of these kids, uh, these young kids are going to get some experience and be coming back next year.

That much better and that much stronger.

That much more seasoned, uh, like, like any other thing that you do.

The more reps you get at it, the better you're going to feel the both stronger you're going to be.

Um, it's, it's also, I, I can't speak for anybody else.

But the record certainly mattered to me.

I like to win.

Yeah.

But I'm too darn excited.

And it's too early in the season for me to be anything other than excited for high school football.

I'm just happy the games are being played.

And I want, you know, I want everybody leaving the games healthy and stuff outside of that.

Yeah.

I'm, I'm locked in.

I'm yelling at my TV and stuff.

But I, or my radio.

But I'm certainly not, um, I, I can't get too worked up over this.

No.

So one thing I will, we could close on there with that is talk about young kids coming in,

reaping the benefits of playing when they're young.

Um, that's an Acusa.

They're seniors.

Most of them have been four-year starters with the way the program has grown and had to,

it's just, it was kind of in a shambles for a little bit and a credit to Mark Tuttle,

who started turning it around.

Uh, he's not had coaching.

We're an outstanding baker and Acusa graduate who, he says, I want it back to what it was when I was in high school.

And they made, I think, three straight level three appearances and should have been the level four one year,

but I really bad, but that's not the point because I was standing right there.

I saw it.

Um, but, uh, he, he's like, last year we were close.

We wanted, we don't want to be close.

We want to succeed in so far.

Three and all.

Yeah.

Yeah, you can't argue with that.

Uh, and it's going to be fun to see how this goes throughout the rest of the season.

We're just in the, just in the beginnings of his so much technically.

We're a third way through.

We don't want to have to wait that way.

I don't want to think about it that way.

I don't want to think about it.

I know as soon as I was second, I was in my head thinking, well, actually, we're a third of the way.

No, I don't want to think about it.

Shut up, James.

Yes.

It was just a joy.

Just be in the moment of the joy.

Uh, we will actually will be come back, keep this conversation going because we're going to talk about the little river jug.

Uh, we're going to talk about the rivalry game between point and rap.

It's the history of it.

Talk about some great trophies, some rivalry trophies in college football history.

And we got a stat of the show coming up for you.

It's Michael and James taking you through the episode of Playmakers Wednesday.

The weekend makers of Wednesday edition, brought to you proudly by our friends of quality plus printing, getting your words out here in Wisconsin, Rapids.

Welcome back, everyone to WFHRs.

Playmakers.

Michael and James hanging out with you.

Hope you're having a good Wednesday afternoon.

Everybody phone lines are wide open.

Give us a call 715 or 2 4 2 600.

What are some of your favorite rivalry trophies in college football or just in sports in general?

And are you excited about this weekend's game between Point and Rapids?

You've got Steven's Point Panthers taking on Europe Wisconsin Rapids Red Raiders 7 o'clock this Friday.

Looking forward to this game, Michael.

Yeah, always throw the records out the window.

There's been a few years for Rapids.

On paper, absolutely no chance to win.

Well, then they come out and they just polish off the Panthers.

But then there's been other times points not supposed to be anywhere close.

And Point comes through and they beat up Rapids.

So I mean, quite honestly, it could go either way.

Points, obviously, the favor on paper.

But man, I still can't rule out the Red Raiders because that jug means a lot to a lot of people.

I told the story about my grandma.

That jug means a lot to those kids, those coaches, me, even.

I mean, I like Rapids holding it.

Yeah.

I mean, I'm as neutral as I can with it.

But yeah, that'd be pretty cool to hold that jug.

I think that's an interesting conversation to have with these games.

I've talked about it with Randy Anner and Offair about calling Assumption Games and how I feel like he does such a great job of...

I can't tell if I didn't know him what school he was rooting for or anything while at the same time.

If you know him and if you're listening, I think that you could hear some things here and there.

Without it being biased, I think you do a very, very good job of that as well.

I'm always impressed with that because every announcer in history has a team.

Vince Cully had a team you're rooting for.

You just don't know.

And they do such a great job.

It's an old school way of doing it.

Nowadays, everybody wears that stuff on their sleeve.

You know who your favorite talkers in sports, chances are you know what the team they root for is.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, one of the things, even though I'm not a real big fan of Joe Buck, he makes fun of the fact,

yep, on what was Twitter or whatever it's called, yep, I hate your team.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, he does, he does own that stuff.

And he is very self-deprecating for what it's worth.

I do enjoy that part of him.

Let's take a call.

Good afternoon.

You're in the game.

Good afternoon, fellas.

Hey, how's it going?

Hey, I got a few I looked up that they sound kind of funny, some rivalry trophies.

All right.

Yeah.

William Honest, man.

The steel tire trophy between Akron and Youngstown.

Okay.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, I've heard of that one.

SMU and TC, you play for the iron skillet.

Yes, yes.

Now that's cool.

That is.

Especially if you could use the skillet.

I hope you can.

Yeah, you got to be able to.

Like a title belt.

Yes, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Like my favorite one though is Nichols versus Texas State.

They have a battle for the paddle.

Oh, that sounds like that sounds like some kind of contest drinky between fraternities, man.

I'm not even sure we can talk about that on the air.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I got a question for you guys.

Is rapids ever played assumption in football like over the years at any point?

No.

And that's I had a conversation with a that's wild with an app with a assumption athletic director.

And I said it kind of as a joke, but it really happened.

It was a couple of years ago when rapids was like one in eight.

And the season assumption was 0 and 9 or 1 and 8 as well.

And after the ninth game, they were done understandably rough years.

And the coaching staffs are all friends.

They know each other at that time.

And I said, you know what?

Let's just schedule a tenth game.

The battle for rapids.

All proceeds go to like the boys and girls club.

And something good, you know, and get the team since you know,

bragging rights for the city.

And yeah, they thought I was serious because there's a at that time,

there was about 1800 kids at Lincoln High School total.

And there is about 200 at assumption at that time.

And the numbers on the rosters, it's just it wasn't feasible.

It wasn't safe.

I mean, not that there wasn't talented kids on both sides, but the depth issue

never would have happened that unfortunately that that wouldn't happen.

But no, to the best of my knowledge, rapids has played against assumption like

girls soccer they have.

I would like to have seen them play in softball and girls basketball and stuff like that

where I think it would be comparable games, but football.

No, no, that's just not going that's not going to happen.

Be be interesting.

That's for sure.

And a great question, man.

Thanks for the info guys.

You have a good one.

Have a good one.

Have a good one.

Have a good one.

Looking forward to talking soon.

The Old River Jug, given each year to the winner of the Wisconsin-Rabbit Stevens Point

area senior high school rivalry game, holds a special place to many out there

as Michael has touched on and shared his own knowledge of.

And born on October 28th in 1947, the jug became synonymous with one of these

states oldest prep football rivalries.

It's one of the oldest trophies given out in high school athletics.

Yes, it is.

It's really impressive and very cool.

It happens right here in our neck of the woods.

There is a thing I'd have to look it up and I don't have a computer to do it

so it'd be a lot easier doing it that way.

There is another river jug that gets fought for between who I want to say

bearable and reeds bird.

I want to say that.

And that's actually the oldest rivalry in the state.

And the meetings between Wisconsin-Rabbit Stevens Point, believe it or not,

there is no trophy for this game which I would love there to be one.

But Rapids and Marshfield have played each other more.

The same county, 35 miles apart.

Never, ever have they...

Never, ever have they trophy.

Weird.

We got to talk to Sheriff Becker on that.

I was just thinking about it.

I was just thinking about it.

It's time for a change.

Yes, yes.

At a meeting attended by football booster club officials for both schools,

Roy Menzel, a public relations specialist in Stevens Point who was a driving force

behind the establishment of the jug,

presented the symbolic bottle to PJ Jacobs High School,

now known as Spash, coach John Roberts,

and Wisconsin-Rabbit's Lincoln coach Phil Manders prior to the year's game.

And that is kind of how the ball got rolling with this.

Yeah, it was a jug got rolling.

Right, and it was really to kind of calm tensions.

Because I mean, Rapids and Point have a rivalry.

And there's times they still really do not like each other.

But back in those days,

from what I've understood the lore,

there are some brawls.

I mean, there was not in the games, by any means, thankfully.

But there was, you know,

showing up in the old Jalapia with your buddies and pounding on the guys from Point

and chasing them out of town or vice versa.

I understood that happened.

Yeah.

Two Michaels Point from the Stevens Point Journal,

according to an account in October 29, 1947,

addition of the Stevens Point Journal,

the Old River jug was primarily created in order to take firm steps towards improving

a good sportsmanship in the relations between the traditional rivals.

Which, at the time, could border nasty.

The rivalry and the river jug is a big deal.

Kids understand it.

Rapids for both coach John Biola is quoted as saying.

Yeah.

And this is your kind of a typical rivalry game on many levels.

I'm not saying that any of these really stand out differently unless you went to the schools, of course.

But it's still very fun and cool to think of that so much history is played in this game.

That that takes place here.

Not, of course, getting a chance to play in this game myself,

but certainly watching it when I went to school at Lincoln and taking in everyone that I could

and being there and how important that was.

Even when I didn't have friends on the team, I was there.

It was an important game.

And even if you didn't pay it to your point earlier, man,

when there's been seasons, we have all experience of our teams where they're not good.

But this game, this game matters.

And even if you go, oh, and whatever, you got to win this game.

It brings out something different in these players, too, when it comes to, you know,

there's a reason some phrases are stuck in sports.

And the old throwing out the book, the record books,

it's a one that actually adds up.

There are certain times where it actually does matter.

And it does, that does, it's an actual almost fact that you can throw the record books out.

Playoffs are a good example of this.

And rivalry games are a good example of these things.

Yes.

I mean, how many times in recent history,

I should have Wisconsin of one, the old axe.

Yeah.

And lately, Minnesota's had a little bit of a, a little bit of a chip on their shoulder.

Wood chip, otherwise, I don't know.

But Minnesota's kind of given the business to Wisconsin a little bit lately.

So there's always to be seen.

Even if you haven't won a game and you've let 50 points up in the every half,

you still are getting up for this game that we don't like these guys.

We're going to go out and try to beat the tar out of them.

Born again, the old River Jug on October 29th, 1947.

That is important when it comes to our stat of the show, stat of the show, stat show.

The Bruce Mahoney trophy.

That is what we're going to talk about and we're going back to 1947.

That is our stat.

It is a trophy that was established in 1947 to commemorate a high school football rivalry

that dates back to 1893.

This is the oldest trophy in high school sports rivalry history in all of it.

The rivalry began with a rugby game between West Aurora High School and East Aurora High School in Aurora, Illinois.

I'm March 17th in 1893.

The trophy is named after graduate from each school who died in World War II.

They are still playing for this today, the Bruce Mahoney trophy.

That is the oldest rivalry trophy in all of football.

As far as I can tell, in all of football.

Now, it definitely is in all of high school football.

Right. Right.

Now, that sounds like it's in a good place that it was formed.

Yeah.

It's just kind of a cool thing.

Again, only rhyme and reason to this stuff really if you went to the school or if you're rooting for him.

I do.

I'm a sucker for history.

And man, you can put in, you add on not only American history, but sports history.

Oh, I'm freaking out.

I love all this stuff.

Oh, yeah.

As far as cool trophies that are played and fought for and everything, I think that there's a number of them out there.

I used to be a big fan of the Northern Northwestern and Illinois game.

And they used to play for a peace pipe back in the day.

Up until I think the early odds they still played for.

It may have been the late mid-90s.

They took it away.

A lot of that stuff came in.

Yeah.

But I was like that one.

I used to like on college football on the PlayStation.

I used to like playing Ohio State for the Ili book.

I don't like it in real life.

No, no, no.

I don't like it in real life.

Do you guys haven't held it since, oh, wait, well, Illinois went to the Rose Bowl?

Oh, one of my favorite games of all time, the Juice Williams game.

Oh, man, I'm at the bar watching that one.

And I didn't give Illinois nearly a chance at all.

No.

Being Ohio State in the, in the horseshoe, it's actually interesting that this is coming up that I brought it up.

Of course, because of the N.I.U. Notre Dame, I have a handful of games.

There is not many games for Illinois football history that you're going to remember.

There's certainly no championship games.

It's all rivalry games or things like that happen this weekend.

And that's another one of them where I'll never forget that game.

Yeah.

I even remember where I was.

I don't know why it was in Appleton.

And I stopped at the now to funk Hooter's restaurant.

There was on all the channels.

I mean, I was in college when that happened.

And I remember watching that in the place just kind of went nuts when Illinois pulled that off.

We are looking at trophies.

One of the ones I wanted to bring up that I don't think a lot of people know about.

You brought up Paul Bunyan's axe.

I think that's one of my favorite ones that they play for.

Open bucket.

Oh, good one.

Good one.

There's a handful that are just fun.

They're just interesting.

The boot between Arkansas and LSU.

That's the golden hat between Oklahoma, Texas.

I like that one.

I like ones that you can use.

I like ones that you can do things with.

Yes.

I was state just played for one this week.

That was a good one.

And how about the troll?

Anybody ever heard of the troll?

The Concordia Morehead in Minnesota and St. Cloud Minnesota play for this one.

St. Olaf.

I'm sorry.

St. Olaf play for this one.

They play for the troll these teams.

This is actually taking us out of the FPS ranks and goes into division three.

And it's kind of unique that they fight for a troll.

The uniqueness comes because the thing is, well, not only ugly, but the troll has been also around for a long time.

It's been awarded since 1974.

And the troll was actually made in Norway.

Norse mythology, of course, big on trolls.

It's kind of fun to fight for a troll here.

I don't think that's too far fetch.

We can go up a little bit in what, northern or in everything.

You've got what's his name?

The big guy.

The big green guy.

I can't think of it now.

The Hodeck.

I mean, come on.

I mean, Antigo and Rhineland are play for the bell.

Yeah.

I mean, there's that one.

I like that too.

Speaking of bells, the victory bell, UCLA, USC.

One of the few times I saw the fan bases for both when I was living in California actually showing up that game they showed up for.

People that I didn't even know what football was were showing up in jerseys and telling me things that I didn't even know about the game and everything.

I give California fans some heat to here and there.

That one they showed up for.

Yeah, I mean, and then there's other ones.

I mean, you have the apple cup Washington Washington state.

You have the egg.

You have the egg bowl, Mitt Ole Miss Mississippi state, the iron bowl, Auburn, Alabama.

I forget what some of what the iron bowl is always good.

Yeah, so like the 108 yard return for a touchdown to win the game the other year for Auburn.

But then there's other ones that believe it or not, they're like Florida and Florida state.

Oh, yeah.

There's not a trophy.

There's just a rally.

Yeah.

That was very interesting too.

I mean, I don't know if you know what I mean or Miami and Florida or in what's weird.

I don't know much of the ACC's history, but you got North Carolina and I believe South Carolina they used to play.

Oh, yeah.

But Clemson and South Carolina, there's one.

That's what's what's what's that one?

I don't know.

Yeah.

I wouldn't be opposed to them creating trophies.

I don't know what the youngest trophy is out there, but I'm not against that stuff.

I'm a sucker for these things and I think a lot of fans are.

A lot of fan bases are.

The freedom trophy.

I think that's one of the most recent one.

The freedom trophy between Wisconsin and Nebraska.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's got to be one of the younger ones.

Wisconsin has almost has near up there the most trophy games.

You got the ones with rodents soda.

And then you got the heartland trophy with Iowa.

The freedom trophy with Nebraska.

There's one other one I'm drawing a blank.

But I know Michigan.

They've got the one with.

Oh, yeah.

They've got the little jug with with Minnesota.

And then they've got Paul Bunion trophy with Michigan State.

Yeah.

That's an interesting one too.

There's the heartland trophy with Iowa and Wisconsin.

Don't want to forget about that one.

There is the shalei between Notre Dame and Purdue as far as looking at big 10 rival race.

I do kind of like that they fight for a shalei.

That's pretty good.

That's pretty good.

The textile bowl between Clemson and North Carolina.

It's just talking about a little bit of where you were in that region.

That's a pretty good one.

And there's all kinds of good ones.

Which ones do you guys like?

Let us know.

715-424-2600-424-2600.

The old wagon wheel with BYU and Utah State.

I don't know why, but it was like that.

All that sounds pretty cool.

That's a good one.

When we come back, we're going to talk a little bit about tailgating.

The NFL teams with the cheapest and most expensive tailgates.

I wanted to get into that a little bit with you, Michael.

And certainly talk a little bit more football.

We have got all kinds of things to talk about.

Everybody, the Brewers have been interesting the last couple of games.

Is everybody know where Jackson Churio is?

Because he fell into the net.

And I didn't see where he went after that.

No, he's okay.

I enjoy watching great outfielding.

And that kid, along with Frelek out there, is a lot of fun to watch.

There are Brewers fans.

We'll remember the name Lorenzo Cain.

One of my favorite outfielders of all time.

And it feels like he was playing like 10 years ago.

It wasn't that long ago.

But guys like him, where there was always a good line about, you know,

water covers this much of the earth.

Lorenzo Cain covers the rest.

I still go back to the days of Jimmy E.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

He's probably one of the best centerfielders I've ever seen.

No matter where he played, whether it was Smilwalk, you St. Louis, Cincinnati.

It doesn't matter.

Edmund stands out in part because when I think of great outfielders,

I think of some of these guys as, you know, some of them like Griffey.

That was just built for this guys like that.

The great arms of some of these guys, like a Colmeni or some of them.

And Jim Edmunds looked like he could have been a bowler or could have been a golfer

or so many other things.

And yet you watch him out there and the abandonment for his body that he had.

You couldn't play the game, man.

You couldn't not love him.

There's certain guys that it doesn't matter what team they play for.

Ozzie Smith, as far as it was sticking with this team, that I don't care who you are.

It's hard not to like him.

It's hard not to rule for him.

And guys like that, especially, man, Edmunds.

Now I'm going to go back and watch a highlight reel of Edmunds when we're done here.

We'll be back after our second time out.

Playmakers probably brought you by quality plus printing.

Getting your words out here in Wisconsin Rapids.

Welcome back, everybody.

Playmakers probably brought you by quality plus printing.

Getting your words out.

Michael and James here with you.

We're going to take you right to the top of the hour.

Hope you're having a great Wednesday afternoon out there.

Phone lines are wide open.

715-424-2600.

Feel free to call up and join the conversation.

We're looking forward to hanging out and talking with you.

We will talk a little bit more about it on Fridays show.