CHICAGO SPORTS TONIGHT - WHITE SOX AND CUBS OFFSEASON OUTLOOK, ILLINOIS VS UCLA AND SAM'S BEST BET

Welcome into a Friday edition of Chicago Sports Tonight. Sam Panionovich with you for the next 30 minutes, leading you up to Illinois UCLA here on Fox Chicago. This segment is brought to you by Old National Bank, where relationships and results matter. Get old. Earlier this week, Cassie Carlson interviewed ESPN Chicago's Jesse Rogers. He was at the GM meetings in Las Vegas, and they talked all things Chicago baseball and more. Joined now by ESPN's Jesse Rogers, who's in Vegas for the week for the GM meetings. Jesse, I know you're a pickleball player, right? Did you get invited to the GM Pickleball Tournament? It's all the rage, it appears. Yeah, it's a great question because two years in a row, I tried to invite myself and got denied at the last minute. Funny thing is, full disclosure, I do play with people in the game. And the league told me, you know, GMs might be uncomfortable with media people playing. And I said, I play with half of them anyway. This is my thing. And so I was denied. But yes, I had the breaking news. The Rockies executives beat the Marlins in the pickleball tournament, second annual among the executives. So the Rockies certainly have an athletic front office. There was a picture of Chris Getz. Everyone's like, oh, okay, Chris Getz is maybe a pickleball player. I don't know if you have any insight to that. Yeah, he's actually a paddle player, you know, it's a little different game, but he's, you know, Pickle's not that different, but here's the thing, I've played with former athletes, no matter how old they are, and they're all so good, they're just, they just have the hand-eye coordination, the athleticism, just like they were as players, and so I'm always behind the eight ball against these guys, because my level of play was high school only. Before it became big. Okay. Let's talk about Will Venable winning AL manager of the year. I don't think it really surprised many people, at least here in Chicago. But as you reflect back on what the White Sox were able to accomplish this season, where do you think Will Venable was most impactful in the way he was able to lead that clubhouse? Yeah, I think it has to be with the young players and making sure they're comfortable, ready, confident when they came up and contributed. Or if they were acquired at some point, like Randall Grichuk, even a veteran, just making him feel fit in. And that starts with trust. That starts with communication. One question I asked him yesterday is, what's the trait that you wanted to bring to the table that maybe you saw when you were coming up in the business that you didn't like so much? And he said, I wanted to remind myself how hard the game was. And as a former player, that shouldn't be that hard. But the further you get away from your playing career, sometimes you forget, like, oh, how did you make that error, right? But it is a tough game. You make easy errors sometimes. You make mental mistakes. And so that empathy, I think, helped him build trust. And then, you know, if you tell a guy, hey, man, you're good, we'll get you next time, he probably won't make that same mistake. And if he does, then you maybe tell him a little bit, you know, stricter. And I think Will Venable has all those clubs in his bag. And I think he actually... probably is a lot more intense than we see in front of the camera. He's very calm and cool, but I've seen him a little bit behind the scenes. And so I think there's an intensity he brings to go along with that empathy about how to play this sport and how hard it is to play this sport. And I think that's what's made him as good as he's been so far. Yeah, that's interesting that you say that, because I was going to say, oftentimes it could be a coach's messaging or their persona fits for one year. But what makes you believe that this is... able to be sustained for Will Venable and the way that he's able to keep his clubhouse together the way it was. And I think I read someone say they were the envy of the of the league by the end of the year because of the way everyone was able to show their personality and the way it all fit together. Yeah, maybe I should have led with that, allowing them to show their personality and letting it happen organically. The smart managers do that. They don't try to create a culture. They let the culture create itself. And there is no doubt Venable did that. He had no idea they were going to start doing all these crazy things. They let it happen. Obviously, Mike Vassell being a part of that allowed it to happen. Them approving Vassell being there as an injured player was all part of it. So, yeah, you got to give him credit for that. Now, next year will be different. He may not win manager of the year, but I don't think his messaging is going to get stale. That's the one thing to worry about. Even with good managers after five, six, seven, eight years, sometimes it gets stale. We're not there. We're not there. We're in the sweet spot for him. And, you know, when you have that little plaque on your desk, I don't know if it's a plaque that says manager of the year, new players come in there. Okay. I should probably trust this guy. He knows what he's doing. So I think it's, it's kind of the sweet spot of Venable's career. We're heading into it at least. We learned this week that Grant Taylor is going to move into the starting rotation. Hagen Smith is going to stay in the bullpen. Were you surprised that they weren't going to move Hagen Smith to the rotation too? Or do you feel like they have a balance now with someone who obviously was their most trustworthy arm in Grant Taylor in the postseason and give Hagan Smith a little bit more time? I am a little surprised. I thought they'd put Schultz, Smith, and Taylor in the rotation. Remember, in the rotation in spring doesn't mean you're in the rotation in August. My point being, I thought they'd give them all a chance and let the best men win, right? But I understand that Hagen had an important role, this kind of multi-inning role, back and forth, sometimes opener, and not everybody has that ability. So if you want to be a starter, he's now been cursed by the ability to do these other things. Having said that, Ben Brown started on the north side in this role and then moved in the rotation. I mean, Hagan Smith is not going to be a multi-inning reliever forever, right? So I think. In some sort of, I'll say short order, I think he moves into the pen. It could be as soon as somebody gets injured, but I sort of get it now that it was explained that he's good at this, we need this. You start with everyone healthy, and if everyone's healthy, that could be his best role, at least early on. All right, let's talk about the Cubs and Ben Brown, who underwent surgery. Obviously, the neck had been a reoccurring issue. Is there any concern that this could still be an issue long term, or are they expecting this to fix the problem and he'll be back? No, they absolutely think that it'll fix the problem. Anytime you have surgery. You know, the healing process has to go on. Come on, that, that you, any, that, that. That's why they wait so long for surgery, because it becomes a much more, you know, involved procedure. And then the healing has to happen. So I assume all of that will happen with successful surgery. They absolutely expect this thing to be in the past. There can be no guarantees, right? But when you take that step of going under the knife. That usually is the thing that solves it, you know, arm problem. You have Tommy John, two years later, you're back, you know, whatever. So this is a little bit different. I don't know much about these kinds of neck injuries, but they waited as long as possible to have surgery. So I think this is the answer. I think the timing's okay. Remember, we've got this labor problem. The season in spring is probably going to be delayed in some manner. Thank And at least they could put kind of a date on his return where Kate Horton and Justin Steele, I mean, at least last year, couldn't put really a date on Steele. Don't know when Horton's back. I think they'll be able to put a date on Ben Brown as soon as he starts throwing. So it's overall good news. When you talk and look at the Cubs pitching staff for next season you. and all five of the starting rotation now being free agents that were at the end of the year, where do the Cubs start in figuring out how they can build this pitching depth Really was exposed throughout the latter part of the season and the postseason. Well, Cassie, how's your fastball? Can you zip it in there? Because they absolutely need some help. How they start is just kind of like any big project. One little thing at a time. Now, that means multi-conversations, teams and free agents. The trades this November are a little bit more difficult, but I can see it happening simply because of the lockout. It gets a little complicated, but you trade for a guy that has one year before free agency and there's no season next year. He becomes a free agent. He didn't pitch for you, and you've lost a player that you traded. So anyway, I think they're having multi-conversations. I think the lockout's actually going to do them some good. They're going to get a little stuff done now and then take a break and reassess and then get a lot done, I think, afterwards as well. Because remember, they lost the division by 14 games. They got blown out in two games in the postseason. There's a lot of reexamining exactly what we're doing here, especially on the mound going on. So I think my answer, and I'm not sure Cub fans will love it, is they're not going to rush into anything in the next two weeks. They'll probably add. And I would look at the Japanese market more than anything. There's a couple pitchers coming over. I definitely think they're interested in one in particular. So keep an eye on that market. But I'm not sure they're adding him. And then two more. And then this and then that before December 1st. I think it's a little bit, and then we'll see what the economic system looks like, and they'll finish it off afterwards. So there's the before and the after. I'd say less than people think before, but not nothing, and then more afterwards. When you say a little bit, I mean, I think people are going to say, oh, so no Tarek Skubal. And the latest reporting, the Cubs are not one of the six teams that are interested in bringing him in. And that's a huge contract that he's going to garner. Were they ever interested? Or is this all just theoretically, oh, a Tarek Skubal would be great in Chicago? Yeah, it was all theoretical. Exactly that. Oh, who wouldn't want Tarek Skubal? Pittsburgh Pirates would like Tarek Skubal. But they were never going to get into that range. Yeah, I talked to some people about 10 days ago about it. They were very sort of dramatic about Pritzker has a better chance of losing the election than Skubal has of signing. Weird analogies like that. And of course, the governor won the election and Skubal's not here. So yeah, that's just the philosophical thing. And I think the idea that What I said before, here's the weird part. They do have a good team, good players. They may not be a Skubal away from overtaking Milwaukee. They have 14 games to make up. And if they sign Skubal, what kind of money are they going to have for the rest of them? Because they have to fill out a whole rotation and bullpen. So they're not ready for the one guy to fix everything as much as they do need them. So they're going to spread out the money and, you know, and sort of the time to bring these guys in and do it more methodical. I know Cub fans don't want to hear that. But for a lot of those reasons, they were never in on Skubal. Since the Brewers won the World Series, how many conversations do you have of just the difference in where these two teams are at right now? And, you know, the Cubs are chasing the Brewers and the connections between the two teams, how the rivalry is built. And the Cubs really, they're pretty far away from where Milwaukee is at this point. A lot of conversations. And they are as far as they've been in years, obviously. Won the World Series, won the division by 14 games. Thanks Cubs didn't win much at all, to be honest. Like, this is a year I don't even consider for they made the playoffs in some ways. They lost home field, didn't win a playoff game, but whatever. watching, It was a decent season in a vacuum, but not a great season by any means. They're behind on the mound, and they know that. and I'll They're behind on the mound. How is Milwaukee taking Jacob Mizorowski as a second-round pick see you and turning him into a Cy Young award winner? next time. How are they taking Trevor McGill, who was on the Cubs years ago, and turning him into this great closer? And Abner Uribe, developing their own player into a great setup man who's probably going to close soon enough. Those are the questions the Cubs are asking. And maybe slowly but surely they'll get there. I think they're absolutely after guys that will hit ground balls. Guys that, you know, pitchers that will throw ground balls because they have a great defense and strikeout guys enough with the home runs enough with, with, with worrying about Wrigley field every day, make your, make your staff home run proof with strikeouts and ground balls. Then we have to worry about the wind. And so I think that's what they're going to try to do. And in that vein, I think Shota I'm Imanaga's moving on, Matthew Boyd's moving on some of these fly ball guys, one chance, two chances, Clay Holmes, David Peterson, ground ball guys. Those guys have a chance to return. All right, Jesse Rogers, we appreciate you hopping on. Enjoy the rest of the week in Vegas. You guys, talk to you soon. Thanks. Coming up on Chicago Sports Tonight, Illinois head coach Brett Bielema joins the show ahead of tonight's game against UCLA, I-L-L. Welcome back to Chicago Sports Tonight. Brett Bielema has the Fighting Illini football team bowling yet again. They face UCLA tonight on Fox Chicago. And earlier this week, Cassidy Carlson went one-on-one with the Illinois coach. Brett, you got a big win on Fox last Friday night. You are back on Fox now this week at undefeated UCLA. Let's start with just the temperature of your locker room right now. What kind of confidence do they have coming off of four straight wins? You know, Cassie, I think the biggest thing with our guys is they kind of just really have learned to enjoy the moment. I talk a lot of times with our guys in the months leading into the season. You have 12 guaranteed opportunities, right? Right. And if you ever try to jump. One down the road, you're never going to enjoy or be successful in the one you're in. So even during the tough times when we were two and three, we try to get them to focus on the next one. Right. And Michigan State, you know, to Oregon, to Maryland, to Nebraska. They really kind of lived in the moment. And I think I've seen a lot of that this week as well. What are your sense of just the opportunity they know they have ahead of them when you head out to the West Coast and you get to take on an undefeated team? I wanted them to understand how special this is, right? First, the venue, right? To be in the Rose Bowl, that's something not everybody gets to play in, not everybody gets to be a part of. I polled our players the other day. I think we had like three players that had played in the Rose Bowl in their career. I first went in 1991, went back three times as a head coach, but it's a very special venue. But to play a UCLA team, right, that... is is literally nine and oh to get a 10th game and have an undefeated team and as good a football team as we're going to face on Friday night is something that's not very common right you just the scheduling doesn't always work out that way so really cool moment excited to get out to Pasadena and see where we're at. All right how would you describe the Rose Bowl because you got to play in it and as you said not everyone gets to do that. Yeah you know what really jumped out to me I knew it was special as a player. My head coach, Hayden Fry, took us to the stadium I think it was in the middle of the day, and we kind of looked out, and it's really absolutely awesome, but definitely in 2011, my second Rose Bowl, we played TCU the year before, and then came back and was playing Oregon. I had Russell Wilson, and they asked us, game day at the time, asked us to come to the stadium at daybreak. I think it was 6 or 6.30 in the morning, and I was sitting there with Chip Kelly. I remember just seeing that sun come up over the stadium and having a cup of coffee and just you felt like you were on heaven on earth, right? As a football player and a football coach, just the way it's set, the majestic view of the mountains, to know the players that have played there before you and the history of it was really, really awesome. That's what I've tried to get them to appreciate this week. Yeah. One of those iconic venues. You just mentioned Russell Wilson. You also mentioned that your quarterback now, Caden Hauser, you see some similarities between the two of them. In what ways do you see him kind of have that natural born leader kind of characteristic? Yeah, it's Cassie. It's exactly what you just said. Like a lot of times the NFL like says, hey, give me who's a comparable. I love comparables. Right. And, you know, Russell Wilson, you know, tried to claim he He was 5'11 every day with a pair of heels, right? Like, so he. He owned that, and what made him great was he knew that, right? Caden is a tall, strong, good-looking athlete that runs extremely well. But the things that I saw similar, both of them are just very dominant in their presence, right? Not cocky, not anything that's negative. They're just very confident. And when you have that in that quarterback room, it affects your whole building. It affects your defensive players, your coaches. It affects the players that are around them. And sometimes it affects that team that you're playing against. That's exactly what Caden has. He doesn't do everything perfect, but every game, the best two plays he last week were plays that he threw the ball away and avoided a negative play, right? And the volume of that that he's done this year has been pretty impressive. All right. So I asked you last week about Colin Dixon. Then he goes off last game and he set some new school records. And then Bob Chesney says, you know, he compared him to Jeremiah Smith. Who's the Heisman favorite right now. Why is he overlooked maybe from the rest of the college football world? Is it just that there is a receiver elsewhere in the conference? That's so much further ahead because Dixon's right there with him in the top 10. Yeah, I kind of compare it to a I grew up with a movie called Walking Tall that was about a guy that was a sheriff that carried a club, right? And he walked quietly but acted in big ways. And I think that's kind of Collin Dixon. Like, this is his first real year of emerging as our main guy. But the last two years, he's been unbelievable. He came in and redshirted, didn't play a snap his freshman year, just went against our defense, worked his tail off. He's just very quiet in what he does, but he speaks volumes in his results. Now, he will speak up. He'll get after it. And be kind of a dominant personality. That's kind of been more this year than in years past. But really fun. Come from unbelievable parents that, you know, raised a great kid. I think the best football is yet to come. And it's really fun to be a part of it. All right. The fake field goal. You called it Charlie Brown. And you said you had to describe it. And I'm not going to lie. I had to Google why it was called. Mark, can you explain it for everyone else who might not know? Okay. Cassie, I knew there was a generational gap in our timeline. So, you know, Charlie Brown, when I was growing up, was the only cartoon on TV. I think I ever watched, and Lucy was the holder of a field goal that she pulled out from underneath Charlie, and he went flying up in the air. Some visual I've had my entire life. So I've actually ran that same fake 2009 Wisconsin at Ohio State. Literally did the same thing, kind of talked about how it played. You've got to call things, you know, certain things. So we actually called it Charlie Brown, and my guys were like, Coach, if we say Charlie Brown's line of scrimmage, they're going to know what it is. I said, hell, you guys didn't know what it was, right? Like, how do you think they're going to know? So we kind of went with a different code word, but just really fun. To see that play out, to see our guys, you know, the excitement it brought ignited our whole sideline. Just great execution. And Lars, our holder who ran the play and is our punter by nature, he has gotten a general ribbing all this week from our team by getting tackled on the two, but very well executed, very well performed. Very fun to watch. All right, I've got to ask you about the expansion of the college football playoffs. What do you think this means for a program like Illinois? And I know you have no problem, you know, throwing some shade at the SEC compared to the Big Ten. Well, I think more than anything, it just includes a lot of teams that can beat anybody on any given Saturday. You know, I directly go back to our last two years where we were playing an SEC team, South Carolina, two years ago in Tennessee that was in the conversation about the playoffs. Right till the last week, right? And they didn't do enough to get in. But fortunately, that gave us in a bowl game. And we beat both of them in close games. Listen, I eventually poked the bear a little bit, right? But it's out of respect. I have utmost respect. Coaching the SEC didn't have success, had modest success. But the SEC, the Big Ten, ACC, you know, the Pac-12, right? The Big 12, like, there's some really good football teams out there, man. Two independents last week, well, they're not independents anymore, but Notre Dame and Miami, you know, go at it in a game that has been around for college football forever. It was about as good a game as you could ever hope to watch, right? I think that's what's awesome about college football, but we can't lose sight that anybody can get anybody on any given Saturday, right? I know we lost a game to Purdue that obviously had been a team that everybody thought we were going to win, and me too, but we didn't do it, we didn't play well. You look at a team like Georgia, who I think was number one, they got knocked off by Auburn, and that's been a little bit of a rolling conversation, right? I think if you get, I was hoping for 20 plus, so to get to 24, I think if you start looking at, you know, maybe four or five teams, maybe even six in certain years out of the Big Ten and the SEC, and then kind of sprinkled in with everybody else, because I just, there's nobody that can argue that playing every week, every game in the SEC and the Big Ten is just different than everybody else's, right? And I think that's the part that really makes it stand out. And there's an opportunity for you guys to go to UCLA, take that West Coast flight that's long out there, and serve the Bruins, their first loss of the season. I know they're a tough defense. What's your scouting report on UCLA? Yeah, they're just a really complete football team. I think Bob Chesney's done, you know, took a blueprint from what he had done at James Madison, took it west. Obviously, everybody wants to compare it to Indiana, but I think Bob is completely different. The formula was there, right? They brought some transfers with them, but they also brought in transfers from a lot of places. Brought in almost as well as three coordinators for sure had been with them. So he's just kind of done what he's always done. They're very complimentary football. Their offense has played extremely well, very explosive at times. You know, they were in a tight ball game with Minnesota, and in the fourth quarter they scored two touchdowns of 75 yards in one play, two back-to-back possessions. So they're very explosive, very. Opportunistic on special teams and their defense plays a lot of energy, a lot of swag, a very aggressive defense that's fun to watch, and we'll see where we're at on Friday night. All right, we're looking forward to it. Brett Bielema, we appreciate you hopping on for a second straight week, and we'll be tuned in Friday night. Thank you, Cassie. ILL. I&I. Coming up, my best bets are 5-2 this season in the NFL. Not too shabby. So what's the move for Sunday? Don't change the channel, and you'll find out. Make sure you catch our sports programming throughout the week. You can watch all of our Chicago Sports Tonight content on our digital platform. Stream the show at 6 p.m. on Fox Chicago Plus and Fox Local. Extended interviews and more on our YouTube page at Fox 32 Chicago. Yesterday on the show, Matt Spiegel and I broke down the Bears' upcoming schedule. On the 22nd of November against the Saints, that should be a game you win, no doubt. Then the schedule gets unbearably tough, no pun intended. Six of the next seven games are against playoff teams. Man, yeah, and so much of that in the division, you know. Four of them. You got four of them, right? Yeah, they finish with those three in the division. And Detroit, that first game against Detroit. Thanksgiving. Yeah, right after the New Orleans game on Thanksgiving morning. Yeah, you know. Caleb Williams is going to need to make magical plays when the opportunities present themselves. They need to run the ball, and then Caleb needs to be special. And we all felt great about that. Up until this past Sunday night, Sammy, what, his odds dropped like crazy for MVP, right? We were having so much fun watching that, and now I think he's down to like a 3% chance to win MVP with Joe Burrow now atop all those MVP odds, and it's understandable. It's going to be hard for him to climb his way back there, but did you lose any trust in Caleb? Did Ben Johnson lose any trust in Caleb when he had a four-interception game? Probably not an opportunity for Ben to coach him hard, and we'll see what happens coming out of the bye. Last but not least, NFL Sunday. Let's talk. These bets are 5-2 this year and the best bet this weekend. Give me Kirk Cousins and the Minnesota Vikings plus three. I don't need the points. They're going to win outright against Green Bay. That's it for Chicago sports tonight here on a Friday. Enjoy Illinois-UCLA on Fox.