Jay's Sports Bar Podcast

Jay's Sports Bar Podcast is a Boise State football show that treats a player's life off the field as part of the football story. Several episodes sign off as a show serving the Idaho sports community, and the Broncos are the thread through the conversations. Jay Tuss is the name on those sign-offs, sometimes alongside a co-voice: former Boise State great K. Calica Neal sits in the studio for the Super Bowl Series, and Shane Williams-Rhodes shares a game episode. That series catches up with former Broncos who have moved on to the NFL. Khalil Shakir comes across as the quiet type, describing himself as someone who stays in his playbook, handles his business and waits for his opportunity. The talk turns to playoff touchdowns against the Steelers and KC, and how those moments got his teammates going. John Bates, remembered by a former teammate as the nicest guy, is heading into year four and a contract year. He lays the options out plainly, an extension or playing the season out and reaching free agency, and calls the pressure good pressure. The closing note on Bates is that he is growing up while his family grows too. Closer to home, the game talk gets specific. Several cold opens carry play-by-play calls of scores and sacks, and the discussion stays on personnel. One breakdown lingers on Maddox Madsen taking a hard hit, then hanging in the pocket on the next play to put a high ball over leaping linebackers to Prince Strawn. It becomes a point about toughness, and about a rotating quarterback system where the other passer is already ready to go. In another episode, the conversation turns to what makes a good head coach. The answer is relationships and being genuine rather than X's and O's, and a recruiting-trip memory makes it concrete: a father warning that you will never be treated better than on the visit. That episode ends with a player looking ahead to what he calls his last game on the blue with his brothers. Kobe Young's return is lighter. A former Bronco basketball player who transferred out, he is coming back to play football, a sport he started in high school, and the chat wanders to knowing the staff and where the cheapest gas in town is. The register is casual and the pace brisk, with long, layered setups before the question lands. What a listener gets is Boise State football from the locker-room side, with contracts, recruiting visits and quarterback rotations folded back into questions about pressure, toughness and growing up.