ESPN play-by-play voice Roy Philpott called the 2024 Bryan-College Station Regional last weekend, and he spoke to TexAgs Radio about how much he enjoyed being at Blue Bell Park. Philpott also spoke about A&M's Omaha odds, Mike Elko's future on the gridiron and more.
Key notes from Roy Philpott interview
- It was great. We had a great time. I was working with Xavier Scruggs, and we had just started working together the previous weekend in Las Vegas for the WCC Championship. I’m not sure he had ever been exposed to that level of big-time college baseball before, and he has tweeted about it after the fact. Watching his reaction was pretty cool. You could feel it.
- That game Saturday night, it’s weird how it ended, and if you’re a Texas fan, you loathe the way it went down. If you’re a Texas A&M fan, you absolutely loved it. You had a play at third base instead of a normal walk-off base hit. When we got done with that game, we felt like we had just played four quarters of football. I don’t know if I’ve ever been a part of a baseball game like that, and you could feel the weight of the world on both sides. I’m sure the ratings are going to be through the roof when those come out.
- It’s a long-winded answer to the question in that Aggieland was great. The hospitality was fantastic. Jim Schlossnagle was great to us. The food was great. To see Olsen Field at Blue Bell Park at that level in the postseason with all the chips in the middle, it’s something I’ll never forget, and Scruggs feels the same way.
- People want to know my opinion on how I think the A&M-Texas game on Saturday night will rate. The way I judge it is the number of random people I hear from on my personal cell phone. We got about halfway through, and I had friends of mine that I hadn’t talked to in like 15 years blowing me up about, “Man, I can’t believe this game!” They had no dog in the fight with no rooting interest. You could be on the outside looking in and could not turn the channel, even well past midnight Eastern time, because you could feel it. It checked all the boxes. For it to be as well pitched as it was, it was phenomenal. The atmosphere was phenomenal. I’m not sure I’ll ever have another game like that for the rest of my life. It’s Texas coming into the SEC, and we mentioned that a couple of times on the broadcast. It’s everything you could possibly envision leading into a game that could never be duplicated. It was pretty special the entire weekend.
- I had Oregon at Oregon State about two months ago. The Ducks are an SEC team. I like how it matches up well for the Aggies for a few key reasons. I like A&M’s pitching, especially after what we just saw. I’m not sure Max Weiner has been written about enough with what he has meant for Schlossnagle by coming in from the bigs and the Seattle Mariners. They looked a lot different than what I anticipated in terms of the arms. We got a slight taste of Chris Cortez late on Sunday night against Louisiana and watched him hit triple digits with control and command. I’ll take A&M’s arms and the bullpen, but more importantly than that, it’s guys in the offense warming up. Braden Montgomery was hitting .157 in the month of May before this weekend. That changed in a hurry. He had three hits in the win over Grambling State. We saw the home run on Sunday, which was tremendous. Jace LaViolette finally got some things going, and Gavin Grahovac, with that shot that he had, may have been as important as anything just to have him close strong. I like all of those things and how the regional came to a close.
- At the end of the day, I was surprised by A&M’s rotation and the bullpen and the slots that everyone fills in. I clearly think they’re going to be a favorite this week, and it’s not that Oregon can’t win. Oregon is going to need some magic to make it happen or maybe even win one game. We’ll wait and see.
- Ryan Prager, we hadn’t talked to him until the middle of that last game, and we spent an inning with him. Within 10 seconds of talking to him, it was like he was the smartest guy in the stadium in the way he answered questions and the way he went about his business. We got done talking to him, and our producer was like, “Yeah, that’s always one of our favorite interviews, and he’s really intelligent.” I was like, “Yes, he has a high GPA.” He matches whatever anybody wants to throw his way, and I’m not even sure he had his elite, elite stuff when we saw him. He was solid.
- You saw the numbers from last year’s A&M pitching staff to this year’s. With the difference Weiner has made, he is going to be a head coach in the very near future. There is no doubt in my mind about that. Right now, the impact is real. If A&M makes the Men’s College World Series, as I anticipate, he is going to be one of the reasons why, and it will be a story that gets broken down in Omaha on a much deeper level. That’s the difference. A&M is a national championship contender right now not because of its offense, which is elite and warming up at the right time. It’s because of Cortez, Evan Aschenbeck, Prager and even Brad Rudis and some of these other guys. They’ve got personality and the production that you’d hope to see in a contender.
- Schlossnagle is fantastic along those lines of interacting with the media, but maybe more important than all of that is that he has embraced the transfer portal and this new era that a lot of old-school coaches have failed to embrace. Whether I like it or not or whether you like it or not, that’s a big deal. At a school like A&M where you have resources and facilities, he’s talking about building a stadium that’s twice the size of Blue Bell Park. They have that preliminary approval of $80 million to get something like that off the ground. The article last week where Schlossnagle spoke about building a monster, we’re seeing that right now. It feels like that’s what’s happening.
- Of course, they want to win in Omaha this year, and I think they’re going to get there. Still, Schlossnagle’s goal is to build that monster, and if you’re a fan of the Aggies, that’s what you want to hear. No offense to our friends in Austin, but you can look at Texas right now. They’re not doing that at the level that A&M is, and that’s an issue for them. At its core, with what Schlossnagle is all about, yes, he’s a great dude and a great human being. But he’s adapting, and he’s adapting in real-time. There are a lot of coaches around the nation who have not been able to do that. If you’re an Aggie fan, you have to love that.
- Schlossnagle is pretty cool. We saw him out to dinner on Friday. We went to The Republic. Our crew was there, and the umpiring crew was right behind us. We saw the waiter come over and hand them eight shots. Schlossnagle was on the other side of the restaurant. He sent them the eight shots. They were all water. He sent them eight shots of water to have some fun with them. That’s his personality. It was hilarious, and the umpires had a great laugh about it afterward. That’s who he is. You cannot have a better personality in that spot, and he embraces the new world order that we all live in. Tough to do. He’s not old school. Props to him on all of that.
- Tennessee has the path. Evansville isn’t beating that team in Knoxville. Florida at Clemson is one to watch. Kevin O’Sullivan is a former Clemson assistant, and what Florida did at Oklahoma State gives them all the momentum in the world. Clemson is my alma mater, but it’s a team that can be down six runs and come back to win. They could also be ahead by six runs and give that lead up. With Clemson being at home, can Florida carry over that mojo? The answer is, “Yes, they could.” I am very anxious for that first game. Kentucky at home against Oregon State? I’ll take the Wildcats. Georgia vs. NC State has me siding a little bit with Georgia, but it will be close and probably go three games. I think at least three SEC teams get to the Men’s College World Series, and probably four. A fifth? It would be a story, and you can’t bet against the conference. If Florida wins Game 1 at Clemson, I’m on board with five SEC teams getting to Omaha.
- O’Sullivan is a former pitching coach at Clemson for 10 years and is coming back for the first time? That’s a juicy storyline.
- I believe the majority of those ACC teams, with the exception of NC State, get No. 3 seeds in their regional finals. Still, the ACC performed well. It was a good weekend for the ACC, and now it’s the ultimate test. I love the series that pits the ACC vs. the SEC in Florida-Clemson and NC State-Georgia. Baseball, this time of year, is always juicy. We’ll see what happens this weekend. It’s always an exciting time.
- I knew Mike Elko when he was calling defensive plays at Wake Forest like a decade ago. I was fortunate enough to call A&M’s Texas Bowl vs. Oklahoma State, and Elko joined us in the booth. He was a pros pro in terms of broadcasting. There is a calmness about him that is just different, and it’s something that I think is needed at Kyle Field. Tactically, he knows what he’s doing. He knows the right way to talk to donors and recruits. Like Schlossnagle, here is this angle to him where there is more than meets the eye, and it’s this new era that we live in. It’s different now than five or 10 years ago. I love some of the personnel that is coming back, and strategically, he is going to handle the teams that he’s going to see this year better than in previous years. That’s no knock on the previous regime. It’s just how things ended for whatever reason. Elko is a little crisper. He’s a little sharper. He’s going to be very well prepared to win some games in some unconventional fashions. This is the kind of coach that Aggies have been waiting for, whether you realize it or not. This is what has been needed. All the boxes are checked. There are not going to be slip-ups that make you scratch your head and make you think you’re unprepared. He’s going to knock all of those things out of the park.
- The schedule doesn’t exactly help A&M simply by playing in the SEC, and now Texas comes back on. Still, there are some experts that have been saying this week that A&M will have the edge on Texas by the end of the year. Texas made the College Football Playoff last year. Now that we go to 12 teams, that helps Elko take the next step.
- I don’t want to sound like an A&M homer, and that’s not what I am. I think the baseball team is going to Omaha, and in terms of football, this was the right hire at the right time. Give him a little bit of time to go to work, but he won’t need it. In a 12-team playoff, would I be shocked if A&M made it this year? No. Let’s turn the page, and let’s see how many wins Elko can stack up this year.
- I hate slamming previous regimes and coaches on their way out the door, but Jimbo Fisher is going to be fine. He has been doing some Sirius XM work. I know he’ll get back into the business of coaching sooner rather than later, and whether that’s as a coordinator or as a head coach, your guess is as good as mine. I don’t want to slam him, but it seemed like he didn’t evolve. There are some guys that you might not have expected to evolve or embrace all this madness, and Elko is that guy. He has done that. In talking to him for one quarter during the Texas Bowl, you feel like this guy gets it. He’s coaching ball in the SEC.
- I always say this when I’m asked about Elko: This is a guy who coached at Duke, and in the season opener last year on Labor Day evening with the world watching, he brought in a top-10 Clemson team. That is a team that is still very talented, even if they hadn’t won a championship the year before. They were a very tough out. In the first game last year, Duke took Clemson behind the woodshed and won by three touchdowns. That doesn’t happen often. That wasn’t a fluke. Duke looked like the faster, more athletic team. That’s all I need to know about Elko. Now what are you going to do at A&M if you could do that at a basketball power? The answer is not small things. The answer is going to be pretty big.
